The Victorious opposition

"Then we'll take it to the Supreme Court," Ferdinand Koenig said.

"They'll tell you it's unconstitutional, too, just like that reporter fellow said they would," Willy Knight predicted. "They're looking for a chance to pin our ears back. Once they get those black robes on, Supreme Court justices think they're little tin gods. And there's not a Freedom Party man among 'em."

"I'm not too worried, Willy," Jake said. "This here's a popular bill. Not even the Whigs left in Congress voted against it. The country needs it bad. Folks won't be happy if the court tosses it in the ashcan."

"I tell you, those fuckers don't care," the vice president insisted. "Why should they? They're in there for life…" He paused. His blue eyes widened. "Or are you saying they won't live long if they try and smother this bill?"

Featherston shook his head. "I didn't say anything like that. I won't say anything like that. We could get away with it if that damn Grady Calkins hadn't shot President Wade goddamn Hampton V. Not now. We don't want to get the name for a pack of lousy murderers." We've done plenty of murdering on the way up, and we'll do as much more as we have to, but looks count. The Supreme Court justices aren't the right targets for stalwarts. We've got other ways to deal with them.

"If I were in your shoes, I'd put the fear of God in those sons of bitches," Knight insisted.

Jake Featherston spoke softly, but with unmistakable emphasis: "Willy, you aren't in my shoes. You try and put yourself in my shoes, you're just measuring yourself for a coffin. You got that?"

Knight was not a coward. He'd fought, and fought well, in the trenches during the Great War. But Featherston intimidated him, as Featherston intimidated almost everyone. "Yeah, Jake. Sure, Jake," he mumbled, and left the Confederate president's office in a hurry.

Laughing, Featherston said, "He doesn't get it, Ferd. And he's go

"The difference is, this way we'll kill 'em dead, and everybody'll stand up and cheer when we do it," Koenig said. "He doesn't see that." He hesitated, then asked, "You're sure you want one of our people filing suit against the law?"

"Hell, yes, as long as nobody can trace him back to us," Jake answered without hesitation. "Whigs'd take weeks to get around to it, and I want this to happen just as fast as it can."

"I'll take care of it, long as you know your own mind," the attorney general said. "You know I've always backed your play. I always will, too."

"You're a good fellow, Ferd." Featherston meant every word of it. "Man on the way up needs somebody like you to guard his back. And once he gets where he's going, he needs somebody like you more than ever."

"When we started out, they ran the Freedom Party out of a cigar box in the back of a saloon," Koenig said reminiscently. "Did you ever figure, back in those days, that we'd end up here?" His wave encompassed the Confederate presidential mansion.

"Hell, yes," Jake replied without hesitation. "That's why I joined: to pay back the bastards who lost us the war-all the bastards: coons and our own damn generals and the Yankees-and to get to the top so I could. Didn't you?" He asked it in genuine perplexity. He could judge others only by what he did himself.

Koenig shrugged broad shoulders. He was beefy fat, with a hard core of muscle underneath. "Who remembers now? For all I know, I went to that saloon and not some other place on account of the beer was good there."

"It was horse piss," Jake said. "I remember that."

"Now that I think back on it, you may be right," Koenig admitted. He looked around as if he couldn't believe the office where they sat. "But hell, we were all just a bunch of saloon cranks in those days. Nobody thought we'd amount to anything."

"I did," Featherston said.

His longtime comrade laughed. "You must've been the only one. Those first few months after the war, a thousand different parties sprang up, and every goddamn one of 'em said it'd set the Confederate States to rights."

"Somebody had to have it straight. We did." Jake Featherston had never lacked for confidence. He'd never doubted. And his confidence had fed the Party. During the dark years after Calkins gu

"We've got some old bills to pay, you know," he told Koenig. "We've got a lot of old bills to pay, matter of fact. About time we started doing that, don't you think? We've looked meek and mild too long already. That isn't our proper style."

"Had to get this bill through Congress," the attorney general said. "One thing at a time."

"Oh, yes." Featherston nodded. "It's been one thing at a time ever since we didn't quite win in 1921. That's a hell of a long time now. I'm going to be fifty in a few years. I haven't got all the time in the world any more. I want the whole pie, not just slices. I want it, and I'm going to get it."

"Sure thing, Sarge," Ferdinand Koenig said soothingly. "I know who you want to pay back first. I'll start setting it up. By the time we do it, everything'll go just as slick as boiled okra. You can count on that."

"I do. You'd best believe I do," Jake said. "Pretty soon now, we have some things to tell the USA, too. Not quite yet. We've got to put our own house in some kind of order first. But pretty soon."

"First we take care of this other stuff." Koenig was not a fiery man. He never had been. But he kept things straight. Jake needed somebody like that. He was shrewd enough to know it. He nodded. Koenig went on, "Besides, the next step puts the whole country behind us, not just the people who vote our way."

"Yeah." Featherston nodded again. A wolfish grin spread across his face. "Not only that, it'll be a hell of a lot of fun."

Sylvia Enos looked out at the crowd of fishermen and merchant sailors and shopgirls (and probably, in a hall near the wharves, a streetwalker or two- you couldn't always tell by looking). By now, she'd been up on the stump often enough that it didn't terrify her the way it had at first. It was just something she did every other year, when the election campaigns started heating up.

Joe Ke

He always laid the introductions on too thick. He didn't do it to impress the crowd. He did it because he wanted to impress Sylvia, impress her enough to get her into bed with him. And there was his own wife sitting in the front row of the crowd. Was she oblivious or simply resigned? She must have seen him chase-must have seen him catch-plenty of other women by now.

"Thank you, Mr. Ke

Joe Ke