“Well, you can imagine the going-over he got. But it must have been pretty obvious to everyone-except to those who make a living off conspiracy theories-that he wasn’t a part of any plot. He was just Roscoe Cartwright. DPD. Patrolman. But that was the end of his career in law enforcement.”
The President nodded.
“He got religion. Lot of people do after something like that. Not that there’s anything quite ‘like that.’ Became a Bible salesman. He was better at that than standing guard. Made good money. Pretty soon had his own distributorship. I was born, and they bought a little house in Plano, outside Dallas. Momma, she taught high school English. I’m named for a character in Shakespeare. Perdita. Only Daddy thought said it sounded sort of Mexican so I ended up being Pepper. Do you want to hear about ghost number two?
The President nodded.
“Momma liked to play golf. They’d joined this little country club called-kind of ironic, if you think about it-Heavenly Valley Country Club. One Sunday afternoon-I wasn’t quite ten-she said, ‘Come on, honey pie, let’s go play a few holes.’ Daddy said, ‘Helen, it ain’t right to play golf on the Sabbath.’ They still call Sunday the Sabbath in that part of the world, least they did then. She said, ‘Roscoe Cartwright, I work like the dickens all week long, teaching, volunteering for every civic group in town, and I can’t see why the Good Lord would give two hoots and a holler if I play a little golf on my day off.’ Daddy went off to sulk in the garage with his power tools, like men do.”
President Vanderdamp nodded gravely in agreement.
“We were on the fourth fairway. This thunderstorm came up suddenly. They do, down there. She said, ‘You go hide under those trees, honey, I’m just going to take my swing.’ And then there was this…” Pepper’s voice trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” the President said.
“She was the twelfth person that year in the U.S. to be killed by lightning on a golf course. I read that in the newspaper, along with a hundred stories saying it wasn’t lightning at all, but part of the-don’t you know-conspiracy.”
“Can’t have been easy.”
“It’s a funny country sometimes, that way. Some people just refuse to accept the obvious. Daddy didn’t take it as a conspiracy, though. He took it as prima facie evidence of just where the Almighty stands on the subject of golfing on the Sabbath. He gave a sweet eulogy. Turned out he had kind of a talent for public speaking. Maybe it came from all the Bible study. He quoted from her favorite Shakespeare sonnet. The one that goes
‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alternation finds…’
“Anyway, he waited until we got home and then had what they called back then a nervous breakdown. A serious nervous breakdown. So they came, took him off to-they called that in those days either a rest home or the happy farm. I went to live with my granddaddy-Daddy’s father-JJ. He’s a retired sheriff. He pretty much raised me, really. Sweet old bird, but tough as boots. Ready for ghost number three, sir?”
“Go on,” said the President.
“Well, they were big on electroshock therapy at that particular ‘rest home.’ Daddy came home three months later. For a while there he mostly just sat there drooling and staring at the TV, even when it wasn’t on. I overheard JJ telling someone-I remember clear as anything-‘They musta put enough electricity through that boy to run a freight train from here to El Paso.’ JJ’s full of lines like that.
“Anyway, Daddy eventually stopped drooling. He announced to us one night over fried chicken that he had a whole new meaning in life-to give witness to the Word. JJ just rolled his eyes and said, ‘Pass the biscuits.’ But Daddy was serious. He bought an old warehouse with his savings, fixed it up as a church. Called it the First Sabbath Tabernacle of Plano. For a crucifix, he mounted Momma’s golf clubs. They had gotten, well, fused by the lightning. That was,” she sighed, “kind of vivid for me.
“He started giving witness to the Word and pretty soon had himself a congregation. This was back when cable TV was starting up and they needed something to fill the air with, so they put him on. His Hour of Power was called Halleluj’all-still is. You may have even heard of it. He’s the Reverend Roscoe. Pretty soon he was a big deal. His church has twelve thousand pews. He gives a big annual barbecue. The governor comes, all the state politicians. To be honest, I think it’s his private jet they like. It’s called Spirit One. He lends it out.
“Anyway, while Daddy was getting himself famous as a minister, I hung out with JJ. He’d take me down to the courthouse and jail, taught me how to shoot. I’m good with pistols. Guess I shouldn’t say that too loud in case your Secret Service folks are listening. But it was JJ insisted I go East to school. He wanted to get me out of Roscoe world. He took a dim view of all that holy rolling stuff. I went to this boarding school in Connecticut. All the girls were named Ashley or Meredith. I was out of my social depth, but the other girls hadn’t talked to murderers in jail and most didn’t know one end of a pistol from another. And they couldn’t blow perfect smoke rings, either. And that’s about it. The rest you got from Google. You serious about all this?”
President Vanderdamp, who had been staring intently, said, “Yes. Absolutely. It’s an unusual situation, I grant you. But I think you’re just what it calls for.”
Pepper said, “I have the feeling this is a joke and I’m the only one who isn’t in on it.”
“I offered the Senate two of the most distinguished jurists in the country and they blew their noses on them.”
“And I’m the next hanky?”
“No. You’re the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, if we play our cards right. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a TV star. Someone called you the ‘Oprah of our judicial system.’ People love you.” He chuckled. “And I for one can’t wait to see the look on Dexter Mitchell’s face. He won’t know whether to…”
“Shit or go crazy?” Pepper said.
“Really, Judge,” the President said. “Such language, in front of the President.”
Pepper said, “You’re the politician, not me. But it seems to me this thing could backfire on you, and you’ve got a reelection coming up.”
The President said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret, but it has to remain a secret. Understood?”
“Yes, sir, I can handle that.”
“I’m not going to run again.”
Pepper stared. “Isn’t that unusual?”
“It shouldn’t be. I said-going in, and you can look it up on Google-that a president who doesn’t spend four years fretting about reelection can accomplish far more than one who does, who spends every second of the day worrying about his approval ratings. As you can see,” he smiled, “I have not spent the last two and a half years trying to win popularity contests.”
“No,” Pepper said. “I suppose not.”
“They hate me up there on Capitol Hill. Why? Because I keep vetoing their spending bills. Why, they’re so mad at me they’re even rounding up votes for a constitutional amendment to limit presidents to a single term. Just to get back at me! Great heaven. It’s like passing Prohibition to keep one person from drinking. And meanwhile, of course, stringing up my Supreme Court nominees from lampposts. Well, don’t get me started on the subject of the United States Congress. But,” he patted Pepper’s knee and grinned, “they won’t find it so easy to string you up. So, Judge Cartwright. Ready to serve your country?”
“Is there a less ominous way of putting that?”
“It does sound ominous, doesn’t it?”
“Could I think about it?”
“Yes. Of course. But I’d appreciate an answer by Monday.”
“You couldn’t make it Friday, could you? I’ve got a dilly of a week. We’re going into Sweeps Week and…” The President was staring at her.
“Young lady,” he said, “I come bearing a very considerable gift, not an offer of a lunch date.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to sound unappreciative. It’s just, I have this hard time deciding things.”
“You’re a judge. Your job is to decide things.”
“See, I’m a Libra.”
The President stared. “You might want to leave that out at the hearings.”
CHAPTER 4
The army deposited Pepper back at the Thirtieth Street heliport by five that afternoon. After the silence of the Camp David bowling alley, the bustle and roar of crepuscular Manhattan felt vibrantly reassuring. She decided to walk the couple of miles back to the apartment, wanting to think things over and postpone the inevitable moment of evasion with Buddy. The President had asked her not to discuss it with anyone.
“Even my husband?”
“Is he discreet?” the President asked.
“He’s a former TV newsman.”
“Oh, dear. Then especially not your husband. If this thing leaks, it’s over before it’s even begun. The first time the public hears of this, you need to be sitting next to me in the Oval Office.”
Pepper thought about discussing it with Buddy, but his record on discretion was anything but reassuring. And she had a hunch that he was not going to take this news well.
“Where the hell were you?” Buddy said crossly when the click of her heels on marble announced her return. “I must have called you four hundred times. You didn’t answer your cell or your BlackBerry. I was going to start calling emergency rooms.”
“I know, I know, sorry, baby.” She gave him a kiss, which he did not return. “I needed to spend a little quality time with myself. Clear my head. Woke up feeling kind of cobwebby up here.” She tapped the side of her head, which at the moment felt anything but clear.
Buddy was looking at her either incredulously or suspiciously. He was sixteen years older than Pepper and at that age when an older husband begins to worry about a younger, attractive wife-who has gone inexplicably AWOL for a day, and returned with an unconvincing explanation.
“But where were you?”
She flung her handbag onto an armchair, looked him straight in the face, and said, “With the President of the United States. At Camp David.”
“ Camp David,” Buddy said. “Really. And how is the President?”
“Fine. He’s into bowling. Sends his best. You hungry? I’m starved. Want to go to that tapas joint? Grab some sangria. Fool around?”
“First tell me where you were today. I was fucking frantic, for God’s sake.”
“Baby, I told you. The phone rang, it was the President. He wanted to see me. They sent this helicopter for me and everything.”
“Are you insane?”
“No, starving.”
“Pepper. Where. Were. You. All. Today?”
“Camp. David.”
“Dammit.”
“What?”
“You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“Well, okay, then, and what did he want?”
“He’s a fan, turns out.”
“The President of the United States watches the show?”
“Apparently. Yeah.”
“Jesus. Why didn’t you take me along?”
“You were asleep, darling.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You were out. What time did we get in last night, anyway?”
Buddy hesitated slightly too long. “Oh, I don’t know. Late.”
Pepper said, “For a guy who divides his days into seconds, you sure get vague when it comes time to accounting for the nocturnal hours.”
“Whoa with the cross-examination, Your Honor. You’re the one who disappeared all day without a trace. All right, all right. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Not hungry.”
“You said you were.”
“Well, I guess I filled up. On bullshit,” she said, and stalked off to the bedroom.
“Pepper.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“I thought,” Buddy said after her, “we’d been over all that.”
“Well, I guess we aren’t over ‘all that.’ ”
“All that” being a blind item that had appeared some months past in Page Six [1]: “Which unjudicious reality TV producer has just hired his fourth young-lovely ‘personal assistant’ whose duties include more than keeping him supplied with foamy lattes?”
She slammed the bedroom door behind her, and then felt foolish for imprisoning herself while actually hungry. But then a few minutes later she heard the front door slam reciprocally. She walked to the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center and bought two shopping bags of books about the Supreme Court, including numerous autobiographies of justices. (There were a surprising number of them by sitting justices. She had been under the impression that they generally waited until later to sum things up.)
Pepper opted for takeout at Shun Lee and, now looking like an expensive, thoughtful bag lady, lugged her trove back to the apartment and holed up in bed with the books. She read them late into the night. It felt weird and illicit-she kept listening for Buddy-as though she were back at summer camp after lights out, with a flashlight under the blanket reading Nancy Drew and the Strange Supreme Court Nomination.
The next morning she found Buddy asleep on the couch. She crawled in beside him and by the time they got up the previous night’s shouting match seemed to have been forgotten or at least duct-taped over.
They mixed Bloody Marys and made a frittata and salad lunch while watching one of the Sunday talk shows with one eye each.
Chopping scallions, Pepper said, “What’d you make of all that Supreme Court hullabaloo?”
“They’re all assholes,” Buddy said thoughtfully.
“Whole process has become sort of a zoo, hasn’t it?”
“Who’d want it?” Buddy said, cracking eggs.
“To sit on the Supreme Court? Are you serious?”
“Nine old farts in robes sending footnotes to each other.”
“Rehnquist. Warren. Brandeis. Frankfurter. Harlan. Black. Holmes. Marshall. Old farts in robes? I’m beginning to see why you went into TV, darling. You have a genuine talent for the old reductio ad absurdum.”
“Don’t knock TV,” Buddy grunted. “It bought you this room with a view. By the way, I was thinking, what would you say to raising the show’s metabolism a little?”
Pepper said cautiously, “What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking, you know, instead of handing out these civil-type penalties, what if we could actually sentence people to jail?”
“Buddy,” Pepper said, “we try civil-type cases. A, people don’t get sent to jail for those, and B, I’m not a real judge anymore. So I’m not getting how we could send them to jail.”
“I thought of that,” Buddy said. “Instead of people signing these wimpy-ass agreements where they’re contractually bound to abide by your decisions-if they lose, they have to serve actual time.”
“What time? I can’t send people to jail. I’m not a real judge. What am I supposed to do, call up the Metropolitan Detention Center and say, ‘Judge Cartwright here, do me a favor, would you, and put some folks in jail for me?’ ”
“No-we build our own jail,” Buddy said, smiling triumphantly.
“What are you talking about?”
“With cameras in every cell. Say you lose your case-you get sent to the slammer. Our own slammer. For, like, a week or whatever. We create a prison. Build our own. Somewhere grim. Down south. With guard towers and-a moat. A shark-filled moat. Throw in some alligators. Do alligators and sharks mix?”
“I’d have to get back to you on that,” Pepper said.
“I hadn’t even thought of that until now. The guards would have uniforms. Darth Vader-type. Scary. And the prisoners-they’d have uniforms. They’d get points for good behavior, et cetera, so you could get out a day early or whatever. And-Jesus!-a cash prize if they escape.”
Pepper tried to concentrate on chopping radishes for the salad. “And if they
get eaten by the sharks and alligators?”
“I’ll talk to Legal about it. Figure something out. But don’t you see it? Oz meets Survivor. [2] It could be incredible. What do you think?”
“Well, darling, you sure are innovative on the weekends. Let me think about it,” Pepper said, continuing to chop.
HAYDEN CORK had been at his desk for only an hour on Monday morning and already he was having a bad day.
“Sir, all I’m asking is that we postpone further discussion until Mr. Clenndennynn returns. His plane gets into Andrews at-”
Dammit, Hayden caught himself. Bad slip.
“Andrews?” the President said, looking up from his paperwork. “Since when do private jets land at U.S. Air Force bases?”
“He’s coming in on a military plane, sir. I sent one to bring him back.”
Hayden Cork braced for a stern lecture on wasteful government spending. Instead the President said, “Good work, Hayden.”
“Sir?”
“He’s going to shepherd her nomination through the Senate. That is,” the President chuckled, “if he can tear himself away long enough from helping overpaid CEOs negotiate debt relief with Chinese commies.” The President was of the old school. He still called it Red China, in private.
“Sir,” Hayden said plunging deeper into gloom, “I’m not sure how he’s going to react to this… whole idea.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Graydon’s an old pro. He’ll get it straightaway. And if it goes down in flames, he’ll put the word out, What else could I do? The President asked me to do it as a personal favor. Crafty old badger.”
“Sir, would you consider just meeting with Runningwater?” Hayden said. “I really think you’ll be dazzled by him. His tribe was celebrated for-”
“Hayden,” said the President, “get with the program.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
IT IS A CLICHÉ in Washington that the most dangerous place to find yourself is between a politician and a TV camera or microphone, but in the case of Senator Dexter Mitchell the cliché had acquired a kind of Darwinian perfection. Dexter Mitchell loved-lived-to talk. He had uttered his first full sentence at the age of fourteen months and hadn’t stopped since.
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