Supreme Courtship

by Christopher Buckley

  By noon, Justice Santamaria had dispatched to the Chief Justice’s chambers a memo as blistering as one of his legendary opinions.

  Under the circumstances, I feel, nor am I alone in this dolorous excogitation, that the Court would best be served were you to resign as CJ, conceding frankly and straightforwardly and for the good of all, not least the country, that developments have overwhelmed your abilities to cope with them.

  My feelings in this regard have nothing to do at all with-let me speak directly-the depravity that your recent rulings have condoned, nay embraced, from gay marriage (enough said) to the abominations inherent in Swayle and now Peester. But your insistence on calling in the FBI to deal with what should have been a family matter… this finally has shaken my confidence to the bone and cast a sickly-hued pall over this (once and pray, future) noble institution. And now this openly, flagrantly adulterous liaison with a colleague? What further degradations do you have planned for us? Orgies? Baccanales? Ecstasy raves in the Great Hall? Have you, Declan, finally, no shame?

  May God save the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

  Yours sincerely,

  Silvio Santamaria, Associate Justice

  “I think Silvio missed his true calling,” Declan said to Pepper. “Grand Inquisitor.”

  “My takeaway,” she said, “aside from you and me being hell-bound adulterers, is that he’s the one who must’ve leaked Swayle. Think about it. Silvio’s idea of Utopia is the FBI banging down the door if they hear someone opening a pack of condoms on the other side. Why would he be so hot up about a legit FBI investigation? He’s had it in for me from the git-go. Hated me for coming on the Court. Hated me for Swayle. Hated me for dissing him in the conference. Hadda be him.”

  “No,” Declan said, “there’s some undistributed middle here. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Silvio’s not the only one who’s up in arms over the fact that I called in the ‘gestapo.’ The only one who hasn’t harangued me is Paige, and that’s only because Paige doesn’t get upset about anything. It’s that New England Yankee sangfroid. The end of the world could be at hand and they’d just look up at the sky and mutter, ‘Looks like rain…’ ” He stared at Silvio’s letter. “I wonder how long before this ends up on the front page?”

  “If it does,” Pepper said, “that would seem to cinch it that he was behind the Swayle leak. Well, Chiefy, what’s the next step here?”

  “Well,” the Chief Justice said, “my inclination is to sock him in his big fat Jesuit nose. But seeing as he worked his way through law school boxing professionally and has fifty pounds on me, I’m not certain that’s the way to go. This term is going to be hard enough without having to wear a neck brace. Well, to work. Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”

  “Rochefoucauld or refrigerator magnet?”

  “William F. Buckley Jr.”

  FOUR MONTHS BEFORE the November general election, and President Vanderdamp was in a funk because his poll numbers had been improving. He now trailed front-runner Dexter Mitchell by only eight points.

  “Charley,” the President said, “what in the name of heck is going on with these darn numbers?”

  “Well, sir,” Charley said, by now inured to these syllogistic conversations with his client, “apparently the people are responding to your clear signal that you don’t want to be reelected. They understand that you’re in it for the principle of the thing. They find it refreshing. Unusual.”

  “All right, but what do you suggest?” the President said with a touch of asperity.

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “The numbers. How do we-there must be some way of… tamping them down. Surely.”

  Charley stared. “You want your poll numbers to go… down?”

  “Well, I sure as heck don’t want them going up. At this rate I’m going to be neck and neck with Lovebucket on Election Day.”

  It was a dilemma that had been keeping the normally sound-sleeping President awake nights. On the one hand, the thought of Dexter Mitchell ascending to an actual U.S. presidency was more than he could bear to contemplate. On the other hand, the thought of another four years… made him want to take the mother of all sleeping pills, but the National Security people had told him if he did, he was honor-bound to alert them so that they could summon the Vice President in the event they couldn’t wake the President to cope with a critical situation.

  Charley nodded sadly. The far-off look came into his eyes. “I don’t know, sir. Maybe if you started sounding like you wanted to win? We could do a massive media buy on the theme of experience and steady hand on the tiller. Make it look like you actually-no.” Charley brightened. “No. I’ve got it. Yes. Announce a shake-up of the campaign. Fire me. Fire all the top people.”

  “Why would I do that? You’re doing a perfectly good job, especially considering what I’ve given you to deal with.”

  “It would send a signal of desperation!” Charley said, more animated than he had been in months. “A signal that you want to win. That you think the campaign isn’t going the way it-”

  “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.”

  DEXTER 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, le
t’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.

  PEPPER 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 Sa
ntamaria 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, AGAINST32. 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.

  PRESIDENT VANDERDAMP 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.”