No Way To Treat a First Lady

by Christopher Buckley

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY

  Little Green Men

  God Is My Broker (with John Tierney)

  Wry Martinis

  Thank You for Smoking

  Wet Work

  Campion (a play, with James McGuire)

  The White House Mess

  Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter

  This is a novel, that is, “a relatively long fictional prose narrative with a more or less complex plot or pattern of events, about human beings, their feelings, thoughts, actions, etc.” (Webster’s New 20th Century Dictionary, unabridged, Collins World Publishers, 1978). It is also satire, namely, “a literary work in which vices, follies, stupidities, abuses, etc. are held up to ridicule and contempt” (ibid.). Finally, and just to belabor the now obvious, all characters herein are entirely the work of the author’s own twisted imagination and have absolutely nothing to do with actual human beings invented by, say, God.

  Copyright © 2002 by Christopher Taylor Buckley

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

  Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random

  House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by

  Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Buckley, Christopher.

  No way to treat a First Lady : a novel / Christopher Buckley.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-58836-257-5

  1. Attorney and client—Fiction. 2. Presidents’ spouses—Fiction. 3. Trials (Murder)—Fiction. 4. First ladies—Fiction. 5. Widows—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.U3394 N6 2002 813′.54—dc21 2002069926

  Random House website address: www.atrandom.com

  v3.1

  FOR DON AND MEG GREGG,

  WITH LOVE

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Babette Van Anka had made love to the President of the United States on eleven previous occasions, but she still couldn’t resist inserting “Mr. President” into “Oh, baby, baby, baby.” He had told her on the previous occasions that he did not like being called this while, as he put it, congress was in session. But she couldn’t stop thinking to herself, I’m screwing the President of the United States! In the White House! Unavoidably, the “Mr. President” just kept slipping out.

  Thrilled as she was, however, tonight Babette was ready for occasion number twelve to be over. It was after 2:00 A.M., and it was plain from the exhausted grunting noises and wheezes coming from her partner that he was straining to prove a point, more to himself than to her. God knows she had done what she could to make the evening exciting for him, but it had turned into an endurance contest. Where’s the romance in that? Plus there was the fact that the First Lady of the United States was right down the hall. The President had assured her that his wife was sound asleep, but this was bold even by his incautious standards. The combination of his unamorous rutting and his wife’s proximity made it difficult for Babette to relax and enjoy.

  She concentrated on helping her commander in chief achieve bliss. It was work. Occasions one through four had been earth-moving experiences. Five through eight had been pretty exhilarating. Occasion nine—disaster. Ten and eleven were little more than awkward attempts to rekindle Eros’ flame. Was he losing interest? The pressure was on. Babette knew that she had to deliver or suffer the unthinkable—indifference. No more overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, no more trips on Air Force One, no more golf or meals with world leaders, no more seat at the table. And just a few weeks ago he had dangled before her the prospect of a Middle East summit weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat. Oh, to miss that.

  Babette stirred from her reverie of trysting with the President in the Catoctin Mountains amid prime ministers.

  There was a sound.

  … bump … bump … bump …

  It was the presidential head, striking the Lincoln bed headboard.

  “Oh,” she whispered, “yes … yes … oooooh.… yessss …”

  Sometimes that got them off. Men loved an affirming sound track.

  Babette sneaked a peek at the luminous face of her watch. Jesus Christ, he’d been humping her for over half an hour. Normally she’d be tickled to a puddle, but not tonight. The wife down the hall, Secret Service agents everywhere. She’d said to him, Tonight? Here? Is this smart? Navy men—they got off on risk.

  He was sweating. He was hot to the touch. His breathing sounded labored. What was this new sound?

  Unh, unh, unh, unh.

  Grunting. Wonderful. It made her feel as sexy as a slab of meat.

  She opened her eyes, then wished she hadn’t. He had this look, like that of an exhausted bull salmon fighting his way up rocks to squirt his DNA over the roe so he could turn belly up and die. Isn’t it romantic?

  He was probably fantasizing about—someone else. Some body he’d seen in a magazine.

  “Unnnnnnnnnh.”

  Finally, thank God.

  “Ohhh,” she lied.

  Silence. The sheets were damp from presidential sweat. Babette liked clean, crisp, ironed sheets, the kind they had in British hotels, so much starch that they crackled. Now look at her bed. Lake Superior. What was she supposed to do, ring for the maid in the middle of the night to demand that they change the bed linen? Uch. She was going to have to sleep in them. Wonderful. She and her husband had donated half a million dollars to the party, and for what? To be on the receiving end of a joyless hump, with the risk thrown in of being walked in on by the wife, then to spend the rest of the night in damp sheets.

  He rose.

  He had gotten out of bed, without so much as a kiss or pat on the bottom, and was silhouetted against the window overlooking the South Lawn of the White House. He seemed unsteady.

  She flicked on the bedside lamp. A vision greeted her: the President of the United States of America, naked but for knee socks, his face flushed like a Harvard beet, his most prominent feature still perpendicular from excitement.

  “Nothing wrong with you,” Babette purred in her best Mae West accent.

  The President looked down at his cantilevered anatomy, taking it in clinically. He grinned and made a satisfied, male grunt. He stooped to gather up his clothes, scattered over the floor. These were the only occasions when he had
to pick up his own clothes. One of the perks of the office was to undress like a maharajah, tossing garments to the floor to be picked up uncomplainingly by reverent lackeys.

  He pulled on his trousers but was unable to zip up. He seemed amused by this challenge, but then a look of distress took over his features and he backed into an armchair, where he sat, defeated, fly open.

  “Would you like me to—”

  Before Babette could finish her offer, the President lurched out of the chair purposefully toward her.

  What impetuosity! She prepared to receive him, but he veered off in the direction of the nightstand. He grasped the leaded crystal carafe of ice water and with the other hand painfully bent the afflicted object downward and plunged it into the icy carafe.

  Babette’s mouth gaped as she viewed the presidential anatomy immersed in her ice water. A wonder there was no hissing of steam.

  The immersion had the desired effect. The President was able to sheathe the afflicted limb in his trousers, though the zipping was done with extreme care, as if unstable nitroglycerin were involved.

  Having finished dressing and combed his hair, he turned and flashed her a grin of triumph, with a navy-man wink. He opened the door, put his head out to check both ways down the hall, and was gone, leaving Babette to her damp sheets and unappealing ice water.

  Elizabeth Tyler MacMann, First Lady of the United States, lay awake in her own still crisp sheets, looking out the window toward the Washington Monument. Being married to America’s most prominent symbol of virility, she was not blind to the irony of finding herself in bed alone, staring at the nation’s most prominent phallic symbol. Not much had ever been lost on Beth MacMann, other than happiness.

  Following the dinner for the President of Uruguay, Beth and the President had left their remaining guests and gone upstairs at 11:30. They’d undressed and gotten into bed. She’d fallen asleep.

  She had woken up, at 1:42 A.M. by the digital bedside clock, thirsty for water, to find herself alone. Sometimes when a call came in the middle of the night, he went into his study so as not to disturb her. If it was a crisis of some sort, he usually went downstairs to the Oval Office. If it was really pressing, he would go to the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing so that the press secretary could inform the press that the President had monitored the situation from the Situation Room. This sounded more impressive than “on the phone in bed.”

  The dark thought crossed Beth’s mind, though she really—really—preferred not to consider the possibility, that her husband was down the hall in the Lincoln Bedroom. Surely he wouldn’t pull something like that. Surely.

  She knew the rumors and, moreover, knew the truth about her philandering husband of many years. But even if the rumors were true, this was the one night it was safe to assume that her husband and Babette Van Anka, actress, singer, party fund-raiser, were not engaging in bilateral relations.

  Beth sat up in bed, straining to convince herself that her husband was at this very minute downstairs issuing orders to attack some Middle Eastern, or possibly Asian, country with stealth weaponry.

  Just then she heard the click of the opening door as her husband, the President of the United States, came in.

  She knew. Knew instantly, even in the dark. No surer radar than a wife’s intuition has been invented.

  Beth contemplated doing nothing, waiting until morning, when, after freshly squeezed orange juice, toast with butter and marmalade, and black coffee, she could calmly confront him with this latest installment in his serial infidelity. Then pour the coffeepot onto his offending parts. She contemplated this for five seconds, then flicked on the light.

  He reacted like any creature of the night—raccoon, cockroach—suddenly bathed in unwelcome illumination. There was a rapid, lateral darting of the eyes, assessing avenues of flight. He was bent forward oddly, holding his jacket over his groin. Beth interpreted this posture as defensive. The body language shouted, “I’ve been screwing our guest!”

  “Iraq,” he said with a sigh. He rolled his eyes to show how grave and yet predictable was the situation.

  It occurred to Beth that Iraq now stood in danger. He might well wait until she had gone back to sleep, then slink off to the Situation Room and order a few cruise missiles launched at Baghdad so that by breakfast time he could look her straight in the eyes.

  The argument that followed was boisterous even by the standards of the MacMann marriage, currently in its twenty-fifth and final year.

  Beth awoke as usual at 6:15. She picked up the phone on her bedside table and ordered her customary breakfast. She got out of bed, slipped on her bathrobe, and opened the door to collect the morning papers, which had as usual been placed neatly on a side table, in the order she preferred to read them. In many ways, the White House was the Platonic ideal of the perfect hotel: twenty-four-hour room service, a concierge at the end of the line eager to provide anything at all, from theater tickets to an army on the march.

  She scanned the front pages as she slipped back into bed. Nothing on Iraq. Surprise. An earthquake in Chile. The German foreign minister had given a speech saying that Germany had apologized sufficiently for World War II. A significant dinosaur bone had been found in Manitoba that paleontologists said might establish that dinosaurs had become extinct not because of a giant meteorite, but from osteoporosis. France, furious with the United States for imposing a 100 percent tariff on its Roquefort cheese, had agreed to sell China high-velocity nuclear torpedoes for its submarines. The head of Mexico’s antinarcotics police had just built himself a third “palatial” villa, on a salary of $48,000 a year. With the presidential election “only” eighteen months away, “unnamed party leaders” were “concerned” that the President’s “message” was not getting “out there.”

  Sophie Williams, the White House maid who always brought the First Lady her breakfast, knocked softly and entered. She and Beth exchanged the usual pleasantries as she placed the breakfast tray, with freshly cut orchid, over Beth’s lap.

  It was at this point that Sophie said to the First Lady softly but with alarm that the President’s eyes and mouth were “wide open” and that he was “looking awful still.”

  This remark set in motion a series of events that culminated seventeen days later with Elizabeth Tyler MacMann’s indictment for murdering the President of the United States of America. Had hers been an ordinary marriage, the charge would most likely have been second-degree murder. But since the husband in question was who he was, the plainly embarrassed attorney general explained that he had no statutory choice but to charge the now former First Lady with the monstrous crime of assassination.

  Chapter 1

  His secretary announced simply, “It’s her.”

  There was no ambiguity as to who “her” might be, not after the force twelve media storm of the previous weeks. The country was convulsed. Seven-eighths of the nation’s front pages and the evening news was devoted to it. If war had broken out with Russia and China, it might have made page two.

  “Shameless” Baylor had spent much of the previous seventeen days wondering if Beth MacMann would have the balls to call him.

  He was, at age not quite fifty, the top trial attorney in the country. He had been the first lawyer to charge $1,000 per hour, which—for too long—had been considered the unbreakable sound barrier of legal billing.

  There were half a dozen second-best trial attorneys each of whom, naturally, considered him- or herself the top trial attorney in the country. But none of them had been simultaneously on the covers of all three weekly newsmagazines, none had been portrayed in movies by a famous British actor pretending to be American. None owned a professional baseball team. And, to be sure, none had been married and divorced four times. The previous record had stood at three. That he had any assets left after such serial marital wreckage was perhaps the greatest testament to his courtroom skills.

  He hadn’t been baptized “Shameless.” In fact, up to the moment he set out to become
the best trial attorney in the country he had been the soul of decency, what used to go by the name of “Christian gentleman,” a veritable poster boy for all that is good and sunny in human nature. His real name was Boyce, and at his baptism, his godparents firmly rejected Satan on his behalf. The rejection lasted until an event that occurred to him just before he graduated from law school.

  The nickname had been given to him by a federal judge early in Boyce’s controversial career, after he had persuaded a jury that his client, the Cap’n Bob Fast Fish Restaurant chain, was unaware that its popular Neptune Burgers were made from black market Japanese whale meat. Since that stunning victory, Boyce had successfully defended traitors, terrorists, inside traders, politicians, mobsters, blackmailers, polluters, toxic-waste dumpers, cheats, insurance frauds, drug dealers, horse dopers, televangelists, hucksters, society wife batterers, cybermonopolists, and even fellow lawyers. An eminent legal scholar who wore bow ties commented on public television that if Shameless Baylor had defended Adolf Eichmann after he had been kidnapped and brought to Israel and tried for crimes against humanity, Eichmann would have been not only acquitted, but awarded damages. It was not said admiringly. But if Boyce’s fame had long since reached the point where shoeshine men in airports asked for his autograph, the public was largely unaware of the actual motivation for his remarkable career.

  And now—a quarter century after his career began—his phone rang.

  He reached for the button, then paused. He thought of telling the secretary to tell her to call back. Sometimes he put new clients through a ten- or fifteen-minute wait before picking up. Softened them up. Made them all the more eager.

  Should he, to her? No. He had waited twenty-five years. He was too impatient to begin this beguine.

  He felt the kettledrum in his chest. Good Lord. Was his pulse actually quickening? He, who never broke a sweat, even while arguing before the Supreme Court?

  He picked up.