Supreme Courtship (23 page)

“We’ll bury him at Arlington with full honors. In a lead-lined coffin so the pallbearers won’t get cancer. And once we’ve sounded taps over the corpse, then I will deal with President Gennady Barranikov. Get me the Russian translation for ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.’ And tell Admiral Murphy to signal the
Nimitz
to stand by.”

T
HE
P
RESIDENTIAL
T
ERM
L
IMIT
A
MENDMENT
was proceeding toward ratification. Eight states, so far, had approved it—states whose legislatures were peeved at “Don Veto” Vanderdamp for having denied them federal spending monies for, variously: a dam, a highway “enhancement,” a wind farm, a Museum of Gluten, an underground storage facility for used fast-food restaurant cooking grease, an Institute for the Study of Gravel, a postoperative transgender counseling center, and an electric eel farm “alternate energy source initiative.” Eight states down, twenty-four to go.

“Your campaign manager called again,” Hayden Cork said to the President in the Oval Office. “He wondered if he might actually meet with you sometime before Election Day next year.”

“What else have you got for me?” the President said, barely looking up from his desk.

“You might at least call him,” Hayden said. “If only as a courtesy.”

“He knows what to do,” Vanderdamp said, scribbling. It was a personal letter to the Russian prime minister suggesting that the recent assassination of the prime minister of Ukraine, performed with in-your-face blatancy by the Russian secret services, might not have been in the best interests of international comity.

“Yes,” Hayden said, “still, it might be nice for him to hear from you some, I don’t know, message. ‘A steady hand on the helm’? ‘Putting people first’? Something . . .”

“He knows my message. ‘More of the same.’ ”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll find that invigorating at campaign headquarters. Mr. President, if I may—”

“No, Hayden, you may not.”

“Very well, sir,” Hayden said, a bit stiffly.

“Was there anything else?”

“Yes. I know how you hate foreign policy crises, but Elan Blutinger called and wants to brief you on developments in Colombia. At the earliest opportunity.”

“Colombia? Crisis? Headache, maybe, crisis, I doubt. What is it?”

“Rather sensitive.”

“Hayden,” the President said, “we both know that he’s already told you what it is. So why don’t you just tell me and I’ll promise to sound surprised when he tells me.”

“President Urumbaga is going to announce that he’s pegging the Colombian peso to the price of cocaine in Miami.”

“And what am I supposed to do about that?” the President said.

“Essentially, the country is switching to what he calls an
economía blanca
. A white economy. He’s in effect legalizing cocaine.”

“He can’t do that. Can he?”

“Well, I’m sure the National Assembly has to be consulted. But you know how that goes down there. How it becomes our problem is that he’s declaring it legal export.”

“For God’s sake,” the President said. “We gave him a state visit last year. South Lawn ceremony, military band, testimonial speeches, dinner, entertainment by whatsername, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Noise Machine . . .”

“Sound Machine, I think.”

“I’d say
that’s
a matter of opinion. He swore—up, down, and sideways—he was committed to the drug war. ‘We stand with you against this scourge.’ His exact words. And now— this?”

“According to Elan’s people, he doesn’t really have much choice. The narcos kidnapped the last of his family last week. You’ll recall his wife and mother-in-law were taken hostage right after they returned from the state visit here. So he’s got the proverbial gun to the head.”

The President stared out the Rose Garden window. “All right,” he said, “send in the
Nimitz.
Maybe that’ll get their attention.”

Hayden pursed his lips. “Perhaps not the
Nimitz
, sir?”

“Why not? Is it in dry dock or something?”

“I know you don’t watch much television, sir, but Dexter Mitchell, he’s in a show now. It’s doing rather well. He plays a president.”

Vanderdamp snorted. “
Finally
. I know all about that. It’s called
POTUS
. President Lovebucket or some such. My grandchildren watch. They like it. They tease me about it. Little Ann Marie told me, ‘He’s more handsomer than you are, Grampy.’ Ha-ha. I said, ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel, I’m not going to name that new national park after you.’ Ha-ha-
ha
! Darling thing. Looks just like her mother when she was that age . . .”

“Yes, well, President Love
storm
, his solution to every crisis is to send in the
Nimitz
.”

“So?”

“I’m all for giving the Colombians the heebie-jeebies, sir, but why don’t we suggest to the Joint Chiefs they send in the
George H. W. Bush
or the
Theodore Roosevelt
or . . .”

“I don’t care what aircraft carrier we use,” President Vanderdamp said. “But for God’s sake, Hayden. What’s it come to when you can’t use an aircraft carrier because some
TV
president is using it.”

“Let me check with Admiral Stavridis, see what we have on station down there.”

“What’s happening, Hayden?” the President said philosophically. “You can’t tell anymore what’s real and what isn’t. Everything’s all jumbled. The world has been reduced to a wide-screen TV.”

“Yes, sir. With respect to that, it appears President Lovebucket has engaged Buss Scrump to form an exploratory committee.”

“For God’s sake.”

W
OULD YOU KNOW ANYTHING
about this?” Buddy said.

He was standing, florid faced, in Dexter’s dressing room, thrusting his BlackBerry at his star. Dexter, recoiling slightly, saw the headline on the little screen:

‘POTUS’ FOR PRESIDENT? DEXTER MITCHELL IN (REAL) PRESIDENTIAL BID

“W
ell, how about that,” Dexter said airily. “Great publicity for the show, huh?”

“Yeah. Wonderful. So. Is this
true
?”

“It’s true that there’s a groundswell out there. You saw that poll in
USA Today
. Some folks down in DC thought, well, let’s see how deep it is. It’s just in the, you know, exploratory phase at this point.”

Buddy stared. “Dexter, give it to me straight. Are you running for president?”

“It’s a complicated process, Buddy. My gosh. First you have to file a thousand forms. Then you have to get thousands of signatures just to quality for—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just tell me: did you hire this guy Shrump—”

“Scrump.”

“Whatever, to form this Mitchell for President Committee?”

“I wouldn’t say
hire
. It’s more of a—”

“This has your fingerprints all over it. O.J. Simpson left fewer fingerprints at the scene than you have here.”

Dexter thought,
Goddamn Bussie. Asking a political consultant to keep his yap shut . . . might as well ask a nymphomaniac to keep her knees together.

“I was going to discuss it with you today after we finished shooting.”

Buddy was shaking his head and pacing and muttering. “What am I running here, a finishing school for Supreme Court justices and presidents?”

“I think you’re missing the big picture here. This could be a tremendous boost for the show.”

“Really? Is that what this is about? Funny. It’s what my
last
star said as she was blowing her nose on her contract. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. President, I’ve already got the top contracts law firm on retainer, and I’m sure they’ll cut me a discount for two lawsuits.”

Dexter laughed. “You’re going to sue me? For running for president?”

“In a word? You bet your ass.”

An assistant director put his head in and said, “We’re ready for you, Mr. President.”

“Let’s talk about this later, shall we?” Dexter said.

“Excuse me? I’m the fucking executive
producer
of this fucking charade.”

“And a fucking good one,” Dexter said. “Look, Buddy. Calm down. Don’t you see? All this, everything—is a testimonial to you. To your vision. You created President Lovestorm. Sure, I play him. But you created him. The writers . . . okay, they did their bit, I suppose. But he’s yours.
I’m
yours. You should be—my God—so proud of what you’ve done. Run with me, Buddy. Together, we can accomplish so much for this country. We can do what others have only—”

“Save it for the deposition,” Buddy said, stomping out.

D
EXTER’S ANNOUNCEMENT
press conference three days later was heavily attended by the media, and somewhat unusual.

Normally the candidate’s family clusters around, lending moral and visual support. But since Terry Mitchell was not at present speaking to her husband, her place was taken by Ramona Alvilar, wearing a quite fetching pantsuit that looked as though it might have been painted onto her.

Off to the side stood Buddy Bixby, producer of
POTUS
, trying with somewhat mixed success to look enthusiastic about this grotesque development. He had spent most of the previous days with contract attorneys, election law attorneys, and public relations advisers. The contract attorneys thought he had a very good breach of contract suit; the election attorneys said that airing
POTUS
in the midst of a presidential campaign would violate campaign finance laws. The public relations advisers thought that suing Dexter was definitely not the way to proceed. (“What if he wins?”)

And so Buddy Bixby found himself once again betrayed by his own creation, grinding his back molars as Dexter Mitchell enunciated his Agenda for America, a lengthy manifesto the reader will be spared here, other than to note that it included a call for: a) change, b) a return to greatness, c) a brighter future for all, not just some, Americans, and d) a pledge to change the way Washington does business.

The sun did not stand still, nor did the earth tremble at these pronouncements, but the news that President Mitchell Love-storm was in the race did lead the evening news that day.

CHAPTER 24

P
epper found it strange, sitting at the justices’ conference table, thinking what had happened the last time she had been in this room—preventing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from hanging himself.

She and Declan exchanged brief knowing looks as they took their places along with the seven other justices. She caught the faint grin. Declan had been looking better than he had in a while. He no longer gave off a reek of mint.

His lightness of mood was not reciprocated by the other justices. He’d barely gotten off a cheery “Good morning” before Justice Haro bitterly complained that his clerks were being harassed by the FBI about the
Swayle
business.

“Could we discuss it after the conference, Mike?”

“No. I’d like to talk about it now. Calling in the gestapo is—”

Justice Santamaria groaned. “
Gestapo?
Did you actually say
gestapo
?”

“Call them whatever you want,” Haro snapped. “But having them in here prowling the halls . . . it’s infra dig.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Santamaria scowled. “But your language is inappropriate. No. That’s not quite strong enough a word.
Vile
. . .”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Declan said. “Please. As to infra dig, let’s all agree that leaking Court decisions
defines
infra dignitatem. Meanwhile we can discuss it all after conference. But as we’re on the subject of the FBI, why don’t we begin with
Peester
? You were the first to grant cert, Mike, as I recall. So, shall we begin?”

Peester v. Spendo-Max Corp
was a knotty case. Security personnel at a Spendo-Max megastore outside Reno, Nevada, had noticed a female customer dressed head to toe in a Muslim
abaya
acting in a “suspicious manner.” They called the Reno police, who discerned geometric-shaped bulges under her robes and deduced that she was a suicide bomber. They evacuated the store and called in the FBI, who arrived with a tactical unit, dogs, helicopters, and a robotic bomb disposal unit. They cornered her in the Bathroom Fixtures section. In due course the Muslim woman turned out to be one Dwight Robert Peester, neither female nor Muslim, but a career shoplifter. The suspicious bulges turned out to be CDs and DVDs secreted in pouches under the
abaya
. Mr. Peester was arrested and prosecuted but a jury acquitted him on the grounds that he had not yet exited the store and therefore had not yet technically shoplifted. A tsunami of lawyers rushed in. Mr. Peester sued Spendo-Max, the Reno Police Department, and the FBI agents on grounds of racial and religious profiling. He was asking for twenty million dollars for various psychic traumas, “plus dry cleaning costs.” The nub of the issue—so far as Pepper, scratching her head as she read the brief, could discern—was whether you in fact had to actually belong to the particular race or religion in order to be a victim of discrimination against it.

The justices went around the table in order of seniority, splitting
4–4
. Once again, all eyes turned to the juniormost justice. Pepper inwardly groaned. She daydreamed that she was back on
Courtroom Six
. Dwight Robert Peester stood before her, wearing bright orange, in chains.
Mr. Peester, it is the sentence of this court that you be taken from here to the place of execution. . . .

“Justice Cartwright?” Declan said.

“Uh . . .” Pepper said.

“How do you vote?”

“I’m kind of . . . down the middle on this one,” she said. “He was obviously planning to boost the stuff—”

“That’s not the issue,” Haro said.

“Well, it oughta be,” Pepper said. “But there was prima facie evidence of profiling. . . . Still . . .”

The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner sounded to Pepper like Big Ben striking noon.

“Anyone got a quarter?” she said.