by James Mills
“Wow! I spoke to the President. I actually spoke to the President of the United States.”
“What did he say?”
“I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember?”
“I was so excited I forgot to listen.” Then she looked at him. “Yeah. He told me to keep my chin up.”
Two hours later, Eric Taeger, watching CNN alone in his darkened office at the car center, was interrupted by a White House messenger delivering a package. Taeger tore the package open and found Phil Rothman’s card clipped to a hot-off-the-press copy of the early edition of the Washington Post. A front-page story, quoting an anonymous source at the White House, carried a three-column headline:
DAVE TO SAM: ‘CHIN UP!’
Taeger read it, grunted, and dumped it in the waste-basket.
In the limousine, Rothman was back on the phone.
“I’ve got news.”
Gus said, “I can’t stand the suspense.”
“There was never an agreement between your father and any tobacco company.”
“What the hell does that mean?” His voice was raised, angry. “Forgive me, Phil. I’m a little on edge. What is it exactly you’re trying to tell me.”
“I just got back from another drive-around with Harrington. He looked like he’d been fighting with lions. He tried to bargain again, would we give them a time-out, cooling-off period, would we do this, do that, and when I kept saying no, no, no, all of a sudden he said, ‘Well, what the hell, it was all a phony anyway.’ I said, ‘Phony, whaddya mean phony?’ He said he’d just spoken with Vicaro, who told him the whole agreement story was a hoax. The document itself is a forgery. The whole thing never happened. Vicaro made it all up because he hates you. Nothing better to do in prison than think up schemes to hurt Gus Parham.”
“That’s a lie, Phil.”
“Right. It’s all a lie.”
“I mean, it’s a lie that the agreement never happened. My father told me about it the day before he died.”
“You’re the only one who says that, Gus. As far as Harrington and Vicaro and everyone else is concerned—including the President—the matter’s over, ended, never happened. All a big mistake. Mistake’s been corrected. Period.”
Samantha was watching him with a troubled what’s-he-saying look.
“I’ll have to think about all this, Phil. Let me call you back in half an hour.”
“What’s to think about? It’s over. We won.”
“I’ll call you back.”
Gus put the phone down, and looked at Samantha. She gazed back, worried, but didn’t speak.
“Samantha, I don’t know what to do.”
Go along with the lie? Say the agreement never happened? He was a judge. Get on the Supreme Court with a lie? The last time he could remember lying, he was in high school.
Gus sweated in the heat and the darkness, and he thought, I know it happened. I know it’s true.
He sighed. The odor filling his nostrils made his eyes water.
So far the charges against him had been lies and distortions. But this was true. Would he deny it? He’d never been a politician, and the thought of becoming one now—a political judge, a political justice of the Supreme Court—angered him. He’d known a corrupt state court judge once. Did a small favor for a friend, not much more than a hand shake, and five years later he was the biggest whore in Alabama.
But what could Gus do? His father had placed the family in a position of potential enrichment if marijuana or cocaine was decriminalized. So if he was on the Supreme Court, and the time came—Hacker v. Colorado, limited legalization of cannabis, the thin edge of the wedge—would he vote against it and look honorable? Or vote for it and maybe get rich? Whatever he did, would anyone who’d heard about the agreement—Harrington, Vicaro, Chapman, Samantha, Michelle—believe he’d ruled impartially? Would even he believe it? Could he trust his heart?
Would he go along with Rothman? Easy to do that. Rothman’s an attorney, White House chief counsel. He knows best. Don’t be one of those moralistic prigs who ruin everything just to prove how principled they are.
Gus looked at Samantha. Her face was set in an expression of resolute silence. A thirteen-year-old who knows when to keep her mouth shut. Imagine that.
“Are you reading my mind, Samantha?”
She shook her head.
What was Rothman wanting him to do, expecting him to do, certain he would do? Why, nothing at all. Simply refrain from laying his head on the block. Forget what his father had told him. Forget why his father killed himself. Conceal, deceive, mislead. Which would be worse, disclosure of the agreement or concealment? Give the victory to Vicaro and Harrington or protect the lie, let everyone believe no agreement had ever been made?
Could he do that? Live with that lie, hide it for the sake of something he thought was more important? Well—more important than truth? More important than honor? What old- fashioned words. His father had tried to live that lie and ended up a suicide.
Had Vicaro won? Was he going to let Vicaro win?
Maybe the senators who would vote for or against Gus’s confirmation had a right to know about his father’s agreement with Vicaro and the tobacco company. But Phil would never agree to let Gus disclose the agreement. All the White House people, Justice Department people, everyone slaving away for his confirmation would think Gus was an ungrateful, self-righteous lunatic. Was this just some kind of false piety? All the good he knew he could do on the Supreme Court—throw that away for some nineteen-year-old agreement he hadn’t even heard about until yesterday? Throw it way for the sake of appearances? That would be crazy. Of course it’d be crazy.
And yet …
“What do you think, Samantha?”
“I don’t know what the problem is.”
“I have to decide between something that’s a lie and something that’s wrong.”
“Can’t you just do what’s right?”
“That doesn’t seem to be one of the options.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I can understand.”
Her face was dirty and her hair matted, but her eyes glinted in the limousine’s half-light. Maybe what this needed was an application of thirteen-year-old innocence—thirteen-year-old innocence tempered with the hard reality of murder and attempted rape.
He said, “I have to decide whether to allow a lie, and maybe get confirmed, or bring out the truth, and probably not get confirmed.”
She waited, expecting more.
He said, “That’s it.”
“Everything?”
“Yeah.”
“So tell the truth.”
Easy. She hadn’t even had to make a decision.
He thought about it, and then said, “Let me explain a little more, see what you think.”
“Okay.”
Looking at her—that sweat-soiled T-shirt, stringy hair. And the eyes. Intense. So serious.
“The agreement my father made with the tobacco company—you heard me talking about that.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you understand it?”
“I think so. If you were on this court there might be some decision you could make and because of that deal with the company you’d get a lot of money.”
“And that’d be bad, wouldn’t it? If making money for myself influenced how I voted on a case.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“So these senators who are going to vote for whether or not I should be on the Court, do they have a right to know about that agreement and decide for themselves whether they think it might influence me?”
“I don’t know.”
“No opinion?”
“Well, it would be good if they didn’t know, because then it couldn’t make them vote against you. But if they should know, I’m not sure.” She hesitated. “It’s too complicated. I don’t know enough. What do you think?”
“I’m not sure either. I think maybe I know, but I don
’t like what I know.”
“You know what my dad, what Larry, used to say?”
“What’s that?”
“He said if you can’t make up your mind about something, just imagine you made a certain decision and then see how you feel about it. If it makes you feel peaceful, it was the right thing. Like imagine you tell everyone about the agreement, okay? Everyone knows. You told them. How does that make you feel?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yes you are. You’re smiling.”
22
Gus called the command truck and got Michelle on the line.
He said, “You’ve heard the news.”
“That there wasn’t an agreement.”
“There was an agreement, Michelle. My father told me about it. It’s just that for some reason Vicaro and Harrington have decided to suppress it.”
“If it’s true, Gus—”
“It’s true. There was an agreement.”
“I believe you.”
“This isn’t like telling someone you feel well when you don’t. It’s not saying you’re busy for dinner when you’re not. This is—”
“Don’t lie, Gus. If someone asks you, tell them, yes, there was an agreement.”
“And if no one asks? Because it never comes up? No one even knows enough to ask?”
He heard her sigh. He wondered how much sleep she’d had. How long would it take them to get over all this—assuming they got out alive in the first place? Would he and Michelle and Samantha ever be normal people again?
“Gus …”
“Yes.”
“You have to tell the truth. I mean, any way it has to be done. If you have to tell people, then you have to tell people. You’re not sitting in that car for a lie, Gus. Neither is Samantha.”
“It means losing the confirmation.”
“It doesn’t matter what it means.”
“It means letting Vicaro and Harrington win.”
“You have to tell the truth, Gus. God will do what he wants.”
“I’ll call later.”
He hung up, and Samantha said, “What’d she say? You know, what you should do?”
“She said the same as you.”
She beamed. “So that’s what you’re going to do, then.”
Twenty minutes later, Gus called Rothman.
“What’s up?”
“You’re not going to like this, Phil.”
“What is it?”
“Hear me out. Try to withhold judgment until you’ve had a chance to consider what I’ve said.”
“Just tell me. What is it?”
“The agreement my father signed with Briggs & Paulman and Vicaro’s father …”
“Yes?”
“If really happened. You know that. The agreement really exists.”
“Okay, so I know it. Now what?”
“I’m not going to lie about it.”
“Of course not. You don’t have to lie about it. I told you that. Harrington’s forgotten all about it.”
“If I know it’s true, and I know it’s important and relevant, and I conceal it, that’s a lie, Phil.”
“Oh, Gus, come on. You’ve been in that limo too long. Don’t do this to me.”
“This limo has nothing to do with it. It’s very simple. The agreement is true, I know it’s true, it’s an important, relevant piece of information for the committee, and it ought to be part of the discovery package.”
“Discovery package? This isn’t a trial, Gus, this is a confirmation hearing. You are under no obligation to disclose anything. The committee asks questions and you answer them. If they don’t ask, you have no obligation to disclose.”
“I have a moral obligation, Phil. If they knew about the agreement they’d ask about it for sure. I can’t capitalize on their ignorance.”
“Gus, you’re very tired and stressed, you admit that?”
“I admit it, but that has nothing to do with what I’m saying. I’m talking about truth and responsibility. Fatigue and stress don’t change that.”
“Gus, no one’s asking you to lie. Why do you feel so compelled to answer a question no one’s even going to ask?”
“Because if they knew enough to ask, they’d ask.”
“Oh, Gus, that’s just … It’s just crap.”
“Phil, listen to me. You’re not getting it. This isn’t a legal issue. It’s a—”
“Moral issue. Gus …”
Gus waited. When Phil didn’t continue, he said, “Phil, what seems like a million years ago, although I guess it was more like a couple of months, you said the President wanted to nominate me because I was a slave to the law. That was your phrase.”
“I remember. You’re not letting me forget it.”
“Well—”
“This isn’t the law, Gus. That’s my point. The law doesn’t require you to disclose that agreement.”
“I’ve got a law on my heart that does.”
“No offense, Gus, but could we just stick to the written law, and not get into subjective interpretations of what is or is not inscribed on your heart?”
“I’m sorry this is upsetting you, Phil.”
“Well, of course it’s upsetting me. We nominate you, you end up in a limousine with your daughter and a car bomb and the whole world looking down the President’s throat—we can’t withdraw you, we can’t get you out of the mess you’re in, we’re about half a millimeter from having our nominee vaporized, looking like a pack of fools, and—”
“Phil, why don’t you call me back.”
“I’m sorry, Gus, I didn’t mean that. But this is really stupid. Disclosing something that can kill your confirmation stone dead when you don’t have to, no one even wants you to. That’s just stupid.”
“Maybe there’s a practical aspect to this that can appeal to you, Phil.”
“What would that be?”
“What if we don’t disclose this, and—”
“We?”
“What if I don’t disclose this, and then Harrington changes his mind and be discloses it, and says that I—and you, Phil, and the President—knew about it all along and concealed it. He says he knows we knew about it because he told us, and he is just shocked to death that we didn’t disclose it ourselves and that he has to do it. Headlines, Phil. ‘President involved in Supreme Court cover-up.’ That could happen.”
“And the sky could fall in. The earth could swallow us up. Lots of things could happen. It’s called politics. You don’t commit suicide just because you’re afraid someone might murder you. It’s stupid, Gus. Think about it.”
“I will if you will. Call me back in half an hour.”
“Gus, what if I talk to the President and we come up with a compromise? There’s gotta be a way out of this. Keep an open mind, Gus. I’ll call back.”
Gus hung up, turned his head, and stared at the tinted window. He knew Samantha was watching him, and he didn’t want to see her face. Compromise—was that the most we could ever expect? His father had been the first in Gus’s life to preach compromise as a standard, a way of life, a maximum expectation, an excuse for not holding out for what was right.
Thirty-five minutes later, Phil called.
“The President can’t believe it, Gus. He just cannot believe it. He’s wondering if the stress has got to you. He thinks maybe you’re coming unglued. I think he might be right.”
“Is this constructive?”
“Is your mind absolutely set on this, Gus?”
“Absolutely. More now than ever. But I have to tell you—well, you know that you do have a kind of solution.”
“Solution? Oh, really? Please, please tell me.”
“Withdraw my name from the nomination. Wash your hands of me. Then it won’t matter what happens. If I disclose the agreement, so what? Who cares? I’m not a nominee anymore. At worst, I’m just some conniving district court judge who thought he could make a lot of money out of a Supreme Court nomination. Even if the bomb goes off, who cares? Nothin
g to do with the White House.”
“Don’t tempt me, Gus.”
“So do it.”
“Gus, you know damned well we can’t drop you now. This whole country’s practically worshiping at your feet. There you are, some damned hero with your newfound, un-aborted daughter about to be blown up by drug traffickers, and the White House abandons you? Get real.”
“So you’re stuck with me.”
“And when I hang up, your next call’s to CNN. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry, Phil.”
Gus’s next call was not to CNN. It was to Roy Jenkins at the Associated Press, the reporter who’d called him earlier. He left his number, and Jenkins called back in thirty seconds.
“I can’t believe it,” Jenkins said when Gus had told him about the tobacco company agreement.
“It was a stupid thing for my father to do, but we all do stupid things from time to time.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant I can’t believe you told me. Why’d you tell me?”
“Because it’s true, and relevant to the decision the Senate will have to make.”
Jenkins laughed. “Because it’s true? Well, that’s an interesting twist.”
Carl returned from his visit to Ernie Vicaro just in time to join agents in the command truck watching Terry’s body on a night-vision TV monitor disappear through a hole cut in the roof of the Mercedes.
Her voice came in muffled grunts over the truck’s speakers as her body squirmed toward the back of the station wagon.
“Another four feet. It looks like there’s about a foot of open space in the back. I should be able to reach over. Hang on. I’m looking over with the light. The edge doesn’t go all the way down. It fills out. It goes down about ten inches and then it fills out to where there’s only about a half inch between the RDX and the hatchback. The detonator’s gotta be underneath. If we’re gonna get to the detonator we’ve gotta move out some of the RDX, or go in through the back door. I’m coming out.”
In three minutes her head and shoulders appeared above the roof of the Mercedes. She climbed out, jumped down, and disappeared from sight.
“So what now?” It was Terry’s boyfriend.
An FBI man said, “Like she said, go in the back door.”