Supreme Courtship (26 page)

“Forget it, Charley. Nice try, though.”

Charley sighed. “We could always roll out a list of second-term initiatives. The usual hit-the-ground-running-on-day-one stuff. It might make them think you’d actually given some thought to a second term.”

“Everyone already knows my second-term agenda.”

“Yes. ‘More of the Same.’ It’s on the bumper stickers. Stirring.” Charley held up his palms. “Honestly, sir, I don’t know what to tell you at this point. If you really want to lose this thing, well, I guess you’re just going to have to stop being a leader and start being a politician.”

President Vanderdamp looked out the window. “How many more states needed for ratification at this point?”

“Three. Tennessee, Nebraska, Texas.”

The President nodded. “It does seem to have moved along briskly, this amendment.”

“It’s the professional pols, sir, on account of the pork. The people like you, at least according to these numbers. Maybe you won’t have to worry after all. If it’s ratified by Election Day, then you couldn’t take office even if you did win. I’m not a constitutional scholar, but an amendment to the Constitution is an amendment to the Constitution. If you can’t have a second term, then you can’t have a second term.”

President Vanderdamp sighed. “Yes. But it’s not a very
elegant
solution.”

D
EXTER MITCHELL, TOO,
was finding himself in an unusual situation.

His wife, Terry, had not gotten past her disappointment over the forfeited Park Avenue maisonette. Nor, at this point, was she oblivious to the fact that her husband now stood to become the next President of the United States. The Mitchell ménage was on the rocks, but through intermediaries, Terry had signaled her willingness to rejoin the campaign. The official reason for her absence up to now had been obscure “health reasons.” She had not, in truth, been much missed: Ramona Alvilar had been campaigning at Dexter’s side from day one as her surrogate and the people seemed quite happy to have this fetching bit of eye candy up onstage with the candidate. There had been some campaigning offstage as well; the
Nimitz
, as it were, had seen quite a bit of action. These things happen. The immediate problem for Dexter was how to explain to his life’s companion, his childhood sweetheart, the mother of his children, that her presence was not especially desired on the hustings. It was, to be sure, a matter of some delicacy.

“What are you telling me, Dexter?” Terry said over the phone. “You don’t
want
me with you?”

“No, honey. No, no. No. It’s not that at all. Look it’s—if it were up to me? But Buss and his people, they feel this is the way to go. Ramona’s popular on account of the show. She’s bringing in the Hispanics right and left. Our numbers there are way—”

“Dexter. I’m your
wife
.”

“Valid point. Valid point. But Buss and his people, they say—the audiences have gotten used to seeing me with Ramona. And, honey, let’s remember—it wasn’t
my
idea for you not to show up for my announcement speech. But let’s not go back. Point is, it’s all going great, so let’s not do anything to screw it up. It’s all about ratings. And Ramona is helping us get ratings.”

“Ramona is your TV wife. I’m your wife-wife.”

“Again, valid point.
Valid point.
Stipulated. Look, baby, it’s only until the election.” He added in a stridently upbeat tone: “Honey, you
hate
campaigning. The last one I practically had to throw grappling hooks around you to get you out there with me. Think of it as a gift. How many political wives would kill to have a surrogate like Ramona to do all the heavy lifting? Listen, baby, I gotta go. I’m speaking to the NRA convention. You don’t want to keep
them
waiting. No, no. Armed to the teeth! Ha-ha. Call you first chance I get. Oh, hey, by the way, use the Secret Service guys for whatever, picking up the dry cleaning, shopping. Nice benny, huh? Bye, honey. Love ya. Kiss the grandkids for me.”

Dexter tossed the cell phone to an aide before it could ring again.
Minefield ahead,
he thought as he made his way toward the podium, inside a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents,
and nothing to do with the U.S.-Mexican border.
But now, hearing the ambient sound of the
2,000
members of the National Rifle Association waiting for him to take the stage, he felt the sugar-rush of adrenaline in his veins.
Concentrate,
he told himself,
con-cen-trate. Let’s just get this football into the end zone,
then
deal with the collateral stuff.
Maybe he’d been a little . . . yes . . .
incautious
with Ramona, promising her . . .
but, my God, what a fox
.
Could get tricky. . . . Well, she’d understand. Sure. Give her a nice—an ambassadorship! Perfect. Maybe even Mexico. She’d mollified some of the angrier Hispanics over the border-mining. . . . Yes, came in handy here . . . giving those interviews where she said she didn’t really agree with me on it. Yes. Mexico. Or Nicaragua, or one of those places. Okay, Dex. Concentrate. Con-cen-trate. NRA. Jesus, wait a minute. . . . Texas. Texas is voting on the term limit amendment tomorrow.
Huge
gun state. THE gun state. Wonderful. And they’ve got me speaking to the NRA today? Great scheduling, guys. Okay. Concentrate. Guns. We like guns. They’re so . . . American. But let’s all agree, we have to be careful with guns. That little incident at the mall in Orlando . . . the media’s calling it a massacre, that may be putting it a bit strongly, but okay, maybe a
little
more diligence on the background checks would be in order? The guy
had
spent the last six years in a psychiatric lockup ward. Should he really be able to buy a gun like that? I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a .38 caliber to go. Well, there are two sides to every issue. But the larger issue is . . . guns don’t kill people. . . . Bullets kill people. . . . Yes. Without the bullets . . . Well, if you really want to get down to it,
people
kill people. Is it the fault of the guns, or the people aiming the . . . Right. Why don’t we just ban
people
while we’re at it?

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve known him as Senator Dexter Mitchell, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. You’ve known him as President Mitchell Lovestorm of the hit series
POTUS
. Soon, you’ll know him as President of the United States. Will you please welcome . . .”

Love this part.

Someone in the audience shouted, “Send in the
Nimitz
!”

You got it, pal.

P
EPPER WAS IN HER CHAMBERS
,
glumly
watching television. Watching daytime TV was not the normal routine for a Supreme Court justice, but this did actually qualify as “must-see TV.” She was following the voting in the Texas legislature.

Texas had cannily delayed its vote on the term limit amendment so that it would be the state that ratified it. Pepper’s already keen interest in the voting was heightened by the fact that in the interim since she and JJ had stopped speaking over her
Swayle
vote, he’d been appointed to the state senate there by the governor—to fill out the term of a senator whose trucking company had been caught smuggling Mexicans over the border.

Much as the imminent passage of the Presidential Term Limit Amendment made for superheated discussion on the talk shows, the country was becoming alert to the possibility of an impending conundrum, namely: what if the amendment were ratified
and
President Vanderdamp won reelection? Could he—legally—take office?

That discussion now moved to the nation’s front burner. Panels of experts and scholars were duly convened; also, panels of people who didn’t really know much about it but who sounded as though they did.

One (actual) leading constitutional scholar wrote a much- discussed article for the Op-Ed page of the
New York Times,
concluding that such an eventuality “might well prove insoluble—the Perfect Constitutional Storm.”

He wrote:

The U.S. Constitution makes no provision for such an unprecedented, indeed, grotesque outcome. But nor should the Founders be held to account for the persistent and adamant incontinence of the American people who, as always, want to have everything both ways: lower taxes and more government services; less reliance on foreign oil, and no domestic drilling; free health care, defined as someone else paying for it; reduced emissions, and enormous cars; wind power, but no windmills in our own backyards; a ban on waterboarding terrorists, but no terrorism; strict border controls, but we’ll still need Manuel and Yolanda to mow the lawn and take care of the kids for $
5
an hour and
(lo siento)
no benefits; and so on, ad nauseam and ad adsurdam. Meanwhile let us hope, let us, indeed, pray, that the state legislatures and the national electorate do not paint us into a corner from which escape is far from certain, and very certainly, messy.

Pepper perused these words while simultaneously watching the voting in Austin. She was suddenly seized with a stomachache, for she understood, more acutely perhaps than anyone else in the entire country, that this dilemma, this about-to-be-dead mouse on the national living room floor, was going to end up right here in the marble palace on her lap.

It was at this moment, as she sat clutching her cramped tummy and watching C-SPAN (
FOR
:
43
,
AGAINST
:
21
) that her secretary buzzed to say that her three o’clock appointment was here.

Presently the door opened, admitting two agents, the director of the Washington field office and—my, my—the assistant deputy director of the FBI. His presence, Pepper surmised, was a gesture of respect. This was after all, the Honorable, the Supreme Court.

The pleasantries made, coffee offered and politely declined, Pepper said, “With all respect, asking the FBI to become involved in all this—it wasn’t my idea. I’d just as soon soak it up and move on.”

The ADD nodded. “Understood and appreciated, Justice. But Chief Justice Hardwether officially requested that we become involved, so the train has left the station.”

“Okay, then,” Pepper said with a side-glance at the TV (
FOR
:
51
,
AGAINST
:
25
). “So, what can I do for you?”

One of the agents said, “Is there anyone here at the Court who might have some motive to embarrass you?”

Pepper smiled. “Yes. Everyone, more or less.”

The agent nodded blankly.

“You read the papers,” Pepper said. “It’s no secret I’m a bit of a”—she almost said
catty whompus
—“kind of a polarizing figure here. In a divided Court, I might just be the only thing everyone agrees on.”

“Have you had difficult relations with anyone in particular?”

Pepper said, “Not to sound rude, but that’s really none of your business.”

The agentry exchanged glances. “We’re only trying to—”

“Boys,” Pepper smiled, “I’ve been hanging around lawmen since I was in diapers. I know exactly what you’re ‘only trying to do.’ And you can cut it out. I’m not going there with you. Now, was there anything else? I’ve got a heap of work to do.”

The agents stared at her TV screen. “It’s the Texas vote,” she said. “Not Oprah.”

The ADD said, “I appreciate what you’re saying. Could I ask a direct question?”

“You can
ask
.”

“Do you have any reason to believe that this leak might have originated within Justice Santamaria’s chambers?”

“None whatsoever,” Pepper said evenly. “Justice Santamaria is a man of integrity, honor, and reputation.”

The ADD stared. “But you and he have had, I understand, a difficult relationship?”

“We’re colleagues. Colleagues agree on things and disagree on things. We have had good, frank, vigorous exchanges on matters of law that sound, why, right out of Plato’s
Republic
. Now come on, gents. This is a fishing trip. You’re throwing out chum and it’s smellin’ up my chambers. Look—I don’t know who leaked the damn thing and I don’t give a damn. I got enough things on my desk to give me ulcers into the next millennium. I know you’re doing your job, and I’ve got nothing but appreciation for that and nothing but respect for the FBI. But now, shoo. That’s all I got to say other than good day to you.”

The FBI rose. “Thank you for your time, Justice Cartwright.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for
your
time, sir.”

One of the agents hung back as the other left, and said, “Ma’am?”

“Yes?” Pepper said warily, this being when the detective typically says,
I was just wondering about that bloodstain on the carpet and this dented silver candlestick on your mantel. . . .

“Just wanted to say,
Courtroom Six
was my all-time favorite show. Aces. Just aces.”

Pepper said, “Well, thank you, Agent . . .”

“Lodato. Joe.”

“Thank you, Agent Lodato.”

He closed the door. Pepper looked over at the TV.
FOR
:
66
,
AGAINST
32
.
MEASURE APPROVED
.

Well, she thought, Vanderdamp was still almost ten points behind Dexter. Maybe the situation would . . . self-clean. But the thought didn’t do anything to help her stomachache.

P
RESIDENT
V
ANDERDAMP
had insisted on spending election night at his home in Wapakoneta, where, indeed, he hoped to be spending the next four years and the four after that, verily unto the end of time.

Charley had informed him, “It’s going to be a long night.” The election was “too close to call.” Pollsters, having called the last three presidential elections erroneously, were being uncharacteristically demure and refusing to predict the night’s outcome other than to say it was going to be “a real nail-biter.”

The President had told his doleful campaign manager, “I go to bed at ten most nights, Charley. Tonight will be no different.” He had written out his concession speech, congratulating “President-elect Mitchell” on his victory and promising “the best transition in history.” It had fallen to the speechwriter to draft an acceptance speech that
someone
would have to read if victory came after ten p.m. The speechwriter, morose over his principal’s defiant hopes of losing, had typed the words, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last,” then deleted them in favor of some boilerplate about “a new beginning.”