Supreme Courtship (27 page)
T
HE LAST WEEKS
of the campaign had been peculiar even by American political standards. The ratification of the Twenty-eighth Amendment, limiting U.S. presidents to a single four-year term, had had the perverse—or inverse—effect of creating sympathy for President Vanderdamp. The day following the vote in Texas, Vanderdamp’s poll numbers spiked to within two points of Dexter’s.
This put the Mitchell campaign in the awkward position of having to say that even if President Vanderdamp
did
win, he would not be able legally to take office. The implicit message being:
So you might as well vote for us
. The trouble was,
So you might as well vote for us
is not the clarion cry the American political ear craves.
And so, that first Tuesday in November, an anxious nation took a deep breath, went to the polls, stared at the levers, check boxes, and chads, scratched its head and went,
Gee whiz. . . .
F
ORMER
S
ENATOR
M
ITCHELL
spent election night on the set of
POTUS
, with—as it were—both his First Ladies, Ramona and Terry. The two ladies had effected a temporary truce but looked as though they might, at any moment, go for each other’s jugular with drawn nail files. This improbable yet iconic trio made for irresistible photo-opera. One TV commentator said it took President Clinton’s
1992
quip —elect one, get one free—to “the next level.”
President Vanderdamp, true to his word and athwart the implorings and protestations of his campaign staff, thanked everyone and went to bed shortly after ten o’clock. It was a testament to the man’s peace of mind and strength of character that he actually fell asleep by eleven; as well as testament to the sleeping pill he took. He did not bother to notify his military aide to alert the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the commander in chief’s somnambulance.
Shortly after one a.m., the President was awakened by the First Lady, gently nudging his shoulder.
“Um?”
“Donald?”
He knew—knew right away from the look on Matilda’s face.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said.
Donald Vanderdamp took another sleeping pill. Let the enemy attack. At this point, Armageddon would be a mercy.
VANDERDAMP NARROWLY WINS REELECTION; POTENTIAL CHAOS OVER TERM-LIMIT AMENDMENT; SUPREME COURT INTERVENTION SEEN AS ‘INEVITABLE’
P
resident-unelect (as he was being rudely called in quarters of the blogosphere) Dexter Mitchell surveyed his options.
The important thing, he knew, was
Do not concede defeat.
As Winston Churchill had said, “Never, never,
ever
give in.” Now that he had a mantra, he needed a strategy. Bussie Scrump said it was vital to keep his face out there in public, so Dexter, flailing, was trotted out for a press conference the day after the election. Adamant though he might be that he was the legitimate heir to the presidency, he decided not to start naming his new cabinet quite yet. Anyway, the press was interested in other aspects.
“Senator, are you planning to sue?”
Good question. But—whom, exactly?
“No. I mean . . . we’re not . . . we’re examining all aspects of it. We’re all . . . Look, everyone’s doing their best . . . it’s a confusing situation. Yes. Yes. But I’ve—”
“Senator, is it true that you’ve hired Blyster Forkmorgan?”
“No, no. No. Well, we’ve . . . there have been discussions but no—”
“Reuters reported ten minutes ago that you’ve hired him to fight your case.”
“My case doesn’t need fighting. Look, it’s quite clear that President Vanderdamp is constitutionally prohibited from taking office next January. I don’t need Mr. Forkmorgan to make that point.”
“Then why have you hired him?”
“That’s as far as I’ll characterize it for the time being. Look, he’s an authority on this sort of . . . a distinguished legal mind. Yes. Very distinguished. Why
wouldn’t
I want to consult with him?”
Why not indeed? Blyster Forkmorgan, Esquire, was to the Washington legal establishment what the tiger shark is to the aquatic kingdom. The mere announcement by a corporation that it had hired (the ironically nicknamed) “Bliss” Forkmorgan was often enough to scare off a litigant, or even the Justice Department. He’d clerked at the Supreme Court (for Earl Warren), been state prosecutor, U.S. Attorney, U.S. Solicitor General, and Attorney General. In recent decades, he had been in hyper-lucrative private practice, occasionally lured forth to act as special prosecutor, an announcement generally made to the rumble of kettledrums. Over the years he had brought down: a vice president, twelve cabinet members, two governors, eighteen congressmen, four senators, fourteen Mafia dons, and twenty-eight CEOs. Federal penitentiaries teemed with his successes. He’d argued sixty-six cases before the Supreme Court and won fifty-four of them. He was the Man to See, if you could afford the $
2,500
per hour fee.
If Dexter’s answers at the press conference were ambiguous, so, at this point, was everything. Even the Secret Service was at a loss whether to withdraw Dexter’s protection, now that he had, technically, lost the election. President Vanderdamp quietly and graciously gave orders for it to be continued until the situation clarified. To that end, Hayden Cork picked up the phone the moment Ohio put its favorite son over the top on Election Night and, his voice barely above a croak, whispered, “Mr. Clenndennynn, please.” Graydon, ensconced aboard the private
757
of the emir of Wasabia, had already heard the news and had instructed the pilot to turn around and fly back to the U.S.
His arrival at the White House was impossible to keep secret. It triggered a thousand camera shutters. A virtual computer game of questionable taste appeared on the Internet casting Clenndennynn (“White Knight”) and Blyster Forkmorgan (“Dark Knight”) in “Supreme Conflict.” The White House press secretary calmly noted that Mr. Clenndennynn was a “trusted adviser” and that it was “perfectly natural” that he should “provide counsel at this”—she groped for the blandest possible word—“juncture.” “Crisis” might have been more apt, technically. The country was in an uproar. The stock market had plunged nearly
2,000
points in three days, forcing a trading halt. When it reopened the next day, the bell was rung by the U.S. Vice President, a neutral enough entity, who gave a cheery little speech about “continuity,” whereupon the market plunged another
700
points. Alarmingly, military blogs hinted that “various elements in the Pentagon” were “unhappy” about the developments.
“Hell of a mess, Donald,” Graydon said, looking pale and hunched. He uncharacteristically waved away the offer of a martini. “
Hell
of a mess.” He slumped into the fauteuil, looking for the first time—old.
“I wasn’t trying to win,” the President said defensively, holding his untouched and warming beer. “But there’s no point wailing and gnashing our teeth and rending the garments. The question is where do we go from here?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Clenndennynn said. “We’re in uncharted waters. You have a predilection for steering us into them. How
did
you manage in the navy?”
“We had radar.”
“Well, it’s going to take more than radar. He’s hired Bliss Forkmorgan,” Clenndennynn said.
“Do we know that?”
“Bliss called me in the car ten minutes ago,” Clenndennynn said, wiping his brow.
“Oh. So it’s on.”
“Yes. It’s on. Battle stations, gentlemen.”
“I don’t want a battle,” the President moaned. “I just want to go home.”
“Well, you should have thought about that before, shouldn’t you have?” Graydon said irritably.
“Don’t hand me that. You were the one who kept pressing me to run.”
“And you did and now you’ve won. You did it for the
principle
of the thing. So now you can feel wonderful. Just don’t look out the window, because the country is on fire over
your principle
. Meanwhile, once again, it’s landed in my lap. Graydon Clenndennynn, presidential cleaner-upper. Every time you make a muck of things, I have to go forward to the cockpit and tell the pilot, ‘Never mind, turn around, back to Washington. President Vanderdamp has made another gigantic caca. For the
principle.
’ ”
“Oh? Oh? Well, at least I
have
principles. I apologize if I’m keeping the chairman of the Graydon Clenndennynn Influence Peddling Corporation—an
offshore
corporation, I might add—from making another squintillion dollars for—”
“Will you both, please, just . . .
shut . . . up.”
The President of the United States and Graydon Clenndennynn fell instantly silent. They turned, stared at Hayden Cork, speaker of the harsh, imperative, unaccustomed syllables.
“I beg your pardon?” the President said.
“Sorry,” Hayden said. “But shall we move on, or are you two going to bellow at each like a pair of old water buffalo?”
“I think I will have that martini,” Clenndennynn said, mopping his forehead.
T
HE PROSPECT
that
Mitchell v. Vanderdamp
or
Vanderdamp v. Mitchell
or
The People v. The U.S. Constitution
or whatever this judicial Frankenstein called itself was going to end up at the Court worked an eerie calm on the three hundred or so inhabitants of the marble palace.
A cloistral hush descended on the place. No one spoke in the corridors. The cafeteria was a funeral parlor. Even passersby on the sidewalk outside the building whispered, shot nervous sideways glances, and quickened their steps. Every hour brought another television satellite truck. Gradually, the building took on the look of an ancient, marmoreal Ground Zero—a temple in which furious gods were preparing to vie. Such was the atmosphere one afternoon when Pepper answered her cell phone, the very private one whose number was known only to a handful.
“Justice Cartwright?”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar, immediately annoying Pepper that it should be coming over this phone.
“Who is this?”
“Joe Lodato, ma’am. FBI. We met—that day, in your office? We spoke just as I was leaving?”
“How did you get this number?”
Soft chuckle. Was he laughing? Pepper felt her face reddening.
“No disrespect, ma’am. It’s just a funny question to ask the FBI.”
“What do you want?”
“I was wondering if I might see you. Off premises.”
“Is this a professional matter?”
Another chuckle. “Ma’am, I may not be the smartest person at the Bureau, but I’m not stupid enough to hit on a Supreme Court justice.”
“Why off campus?”
“This must be a tense time at the Court. Who needs a knuckle-dragger prowling the halls, right? There’s a place on Capitol Hill called the Pork Barrel, it’s . . .”
“I know it.”
T
HEY SAT IN A BACK BOOTH
and ordered coffee.
“I know this is sensitive for you,” he began apologetically.
“Agent Lodato,” Pepper said. “I can handle it. Now you’ve got me in a lobbyist bar at four o’clock on a school day. What’s up?”
Agent Lodato produced a piece of paper that she immediately recognized as a page from her
Swayle
opinion, annotated.
Agent Lodato pointed to a spot on the page. Pepper saw the words—words that she herself had typed in block letters: “
KISS MY ASS
.”
She froze. “No,” she said. “No. Hold on. Something’s wrong here. I
deleted
that.”
Agent Lodato pointed to the lower right-hand of the page. “Do you recognize those initials and that handwriting?”
Pepper looked. “IH.” Ishiguro Haro. The date was next to it.
“I’m told he initials every document he reads and dates it.”
“I don’t understand this,” Pepper said. “I did write that, but I deleted it.” Her mind raced. “He’d sent me his comments on my
Peester
opinion. I thought they were a little patronizing and I got a little frosted and . . . I typed this. But then I went to the gym to cool off and came back and I deleted ‘
KISS MY ASS
’ and typed in . . .”
Agent Lodato was nodding metronomically.
“. . . and typed in something like,
okay, thank you, got it, good point, okay, fair enough,
and . . .” Pepper’s voice trailed off. She looked at Lodato. “Aw,
shit
.”
“Happens all the time,” Agent Lodato shrugged. “You think you’re closing a file. Instead you’re hitting
SEND
and the next thing you know . . . I could tell you stories.”
Pepper’s heart was pounding. “How did you
get
this?”
“Ma’am,” he smiled. “I’m an FBI agent. It’s what I do.”
“But you can’t just . . . It’s the Supreme Court.”
“Off the record, Justice Haro appears not to be too popular among his own clerks.”
“Well, okay,” Pepper said, “but what does this prove?”
Agent Lodato took another piece of paper from his inside pocket, unfolded that, and laid it out in front of Pepper. It looked like a cell phone bill. One line had been yellow highlighted.
“This is a cell phone bill for someone named Aurora Fonacier,” he said. “This number here that’s highlighted, that’s a cell phone belonging to a reporter at the
Washington Times
newspaper—the one who wrote the unsigned
Swayle
item in the paper. The article wasn’t bylined so as to protect him from a subpoena, though I understand the AG is considering subpoenaing the editor and publisher and chairman of the board. See the date of this call? That’s the day after Justice Haro read and initialed your ‘kiss my’ . . . rear-end comment note.”
“Who’s Aurora Fonacier?”
“Justice Haro’s housekeeper.”
Pepper stared.
“Filipino lady. Very nice person, from what I gather. Not a huge English speaker. Quiet worker. So you have to wonder what she’s doing engaging in a twenty-two-minute phone call with a Supreme Court reporter for the
Washington Times.
”