Boomsday

by Christopher Buckley

  Judy Woodruff of CNN, moderator of tonight’s debate, had her laptop in front of her.

  “Sir,” she said to the president, “just a few minutes ago, Senator Jepperson, who is not allowed to be here, accused you of deliberately undermining a peaceful demonstration on the Mall. According to various legal experts, it is not clear that burning a Social Security card is a federal crime. Did you personally give the order to the police to intervene in the PASS demonstration?”

  The president looked as though he himself were on the verge of deploying the f-word. “Judy, I came here tonight to this wonderful state of South Carolina to debate the issues, not to comment on an ongoing law enforcement matter. And that,” he said, grinding his teeth, “is what I plan to do.”

  It was the consensus of those who watched the debate that the president did not acquit himself particularly well. Gideon Payne—of all people!—criticized the government’s tactics at the demonstration and demanded that the president intervene personally to lift the warrant on Cassandra Devine. The president, now drawn in, called Cass a “saboteur” and even hinted that she was an agent of North Korea. This last assertion drew laughter from the debate audience, which, under the debating rules, is not supposed to express emotion. All in all, the president looked, as one observer said afterward, as though he were about to pass a kidney stone. He did not linger after the debate for the usual faux display of onstage collegiality and chitchat with the relatives of his opponents. Meanwhile, Randy, who had conducted his interview from a trailer outside the hall, waded into Spin Alley, where he was mobbed by delighted reporters.

  Three days later, Gideon Payne won the South Carolina primary. Randy came in second; Peacham, third. Randy’s strong showing was attributed to the state’s historical predilection for rebels.

  Chapter 38

  Cass had her hair cut and dyed black at a salon and wrapped a scarf around her head. She bought a sleeping bag at an outdoors store, lifted a shopping cart from a supermarket, and became a bag lady, sleeping in parks and woods. A few days later, Terry dropped off, at a predesignated point, cash and a “clean” PDA of the kind used by intelligence agencies, called a “StealthBerry” (supplied by Randy’s guy Mike Speck; it was difficult to trace its transmissions geographically). Now she could communicate with her followers as well as certain members of the media. Her fugitive status had greatly enhanced her celebrity.

  There is no opportunist like a politician. Randy, sensing a very good thing, plunged in. He denounced the government for driving “the woman I love” into hiding. Cass, listening to this on her SB, rolled her eyes. Randy further demanded the resignations of the “little tyrants in the White House”—this was assumed to be a reference to Bucky Trumble and Frank Cohane. As a final flourish, Randy boasted that he would happily render Cass aid and assistance—“if she asks for it,” which got him off the legal hook. Thumping the podium, Randy said, “If President Peacham wants to have me arrested, I say to him”—the audience braced for another expletive—“you know where to find me!” The line received tremendous applause and wide reportage. Everyone on the Jepperson campaign staff was happy to retire STFU.

  The little and big tyrants in the White House now found themselves in a difficult if not downright intractable position. A warrant had been issued. If the warrant were withdrawn, it would look as if the government were caving in to popular pressure, for the second time, in the case of Cassandra Devine. A great many midnight hours were spent deliberating over this, at the very highest levels of government.

  “Why don’t we just pardon her?” Bucky suggested.

  “I can’t pardon her when she hasn’t been convicted of a damn crime,” the president growled. His mood was worse than ever. Everywhere he went, he was asked, “When are you going to stop persecuting that poor young woman?”

  Frank Cohane, the father of the poor young woman, was finding himself, too, beset by a hostile media.

  “I’m not involved in any of that.” He grinned tightly. “I’m just trying to concentrate on helping to reelect a truly great president.”

  Against Bucky’s counsel, he had accepted an invitation to go on Greet the Press.

  “Is it true that you pressured the president to go after your own daughter?” Waddowes asked. Frank froze. If you’re trying to get yourself appointed secretary of the Treasury, this is not an ideal question. Frank tried to California-smile his way out of it but found himself confronted by a look of curdled contempt on the face of Glen Waddowes. Waddowes had good sources in the White House and was not known to ask frivolous questions.

  “Uh . . .of course not,” Frank said. Should he mention that he had recently received a Stepfather of the Year award? “I . . .she’s . . .well, my Cass has always, ha ha, been an independent sort of person. Why, as a little girl, she used to—”

  “Did you or did you not counsel the president to have her arrested?”

  “Glen, the president hardly needs my advice on a question like that. I’m just a finance guy. Of course, I like to think that I’m a capable finance guy.”

  Frank felt the cold stare of millions of viewers. The only correct answer to Waddowes’s question, really, was, Absolutely not, Glen, and give me the name of the swine who suggested that I did, in order that I may challenge him to a duel to the death.

  A few days later, The Washington Post published a lengthy and rather well-sourced article entitled “The Dad from Hell?” There was a copious amount of biographical detail in it, including his having spent Cass’s Yale tuition money—and the mortgage on the family home—on his start-up. Cass recognized her mother’s unattributed quotes.

  “That’s some finance chairman you found me,” the president said to Bucky the morning it came out. “Anything else I ought to know about him?”

  Why, as a matter of fact, yes, Mr. President. He has a tape recording of me asking him to criminally implicate his innocent daughter in a serial murder scheme. Won’t that make our day when it comes to light?

  Bucky did not utter these words aloud, though they did form in his mind.

  Gideon was riding a wave. The cover of Newsweek showed a picture of him looking like a younger version of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, beaming beneath a headline: PRESIDENT FOR LIFE? Inside, Newsweek asked soberly, “His beliefs on the sanctity of human life are shared by many, but is the country ready to be led by an old-fashioned moralist who may or may not have killed his own mother?” It was all very heady, yet all Gideon could think about was his little Russian honey. He was obsessed. He called her ten, twelve times a day, just to hear her say, “Darrling Gidyon, I am wery wet for you. When you bring me more money?”

  Though very new to the business of romance, Gideon was not naive enough to suppose that Olga’s apartment, decorated in a style that might be called “contemporary Russian prostitute,” was that of a woman who earned her living teaching second grade and spent her nights volunteering for the Red Cross. He grew jealous thinking of her other “wisitors.” He considered hiring a private detective to keep an eye on the comings and goings. During interviews with the media, while called upon to discuss his views on Social Security reform and stem cell research and the death penalty, he found himself daydreaming of Olga and her perfumy thighs.

  On Super Tuesday, the day when voters in a large number of states cast their votes in the primaries, several facts became apparent.

  The most glaring of these was that President Riley Peacham was in trouble—or, as it is called by savvy political observers, “deep doo-doo.” The second was that Senator Randolph K. Jepperson had taken serious chunks of flesh out of the president, and though he would not likely beat Peacham for the party’s nomination in August, he clearly had enough votes to run on his own as an independent. The third was that Gideon Payne had a hammerlock on the powerful evangelical Christian vote and was poised to do pretty much whatever (the hell) he wanted.

  Peacham had managed to mitigate some of the furor over his administration’s handling of Cassandra
Devine by having the attorney general issue a plea to Cass to turn herself in. If she did, the Justice Department promised “leniency and understanding.”

  Cass, however, had no intention of turning herself in. She had a bully pulpit. One magazine had named her “the New Swamp Fox.” Her website postings were anticipated and reported by everyone the moment they appeared. The FBI, invoking some obscure antiterrorism statute, had shut down Cassandra, but Cass’s followers kept starting new ones, called Cassandra.2, etc. The latest Cassandra was .54. To judge from the millions of hits on the site, her following was growing every day.

  A few days after Super Tuesday, Randy declared that he was withdrawing from the remaining party primaries and would be a candidate for the Whatever Party, proudly named for the generation it represented. Columnist George Will dryly recorded his gratitude that “we will at least be spared a party named STFU.” Randy’s operatives swiftly went about collecting the requisite signatures; his lawyers began suing all fifty states and U.S. possessions to get him on the November ballot.

  One week later, Gideon Payne announced that he too was withdrawing from further party primaries and would run as the candidate of the Life Party.

  All this left President Peacham facing the unhappy prospect of having to finish off his remaining four challengers for the party’s nomination—all of whom were staying in the race until the end so as to inflate their speaking and product endorsement fees—at which point, badly weakened, he would have to face Randy and Gideon in the general fall election.

  “Where are you?” Randy said.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Cass said. Randy’s guy Mike Speck had informed Randy that his phone lines were not tapped. (Since the early 1970s, U.S. presidents have shied away from overtly listening in to their opponents’ telephone calls.) It was safe to talk. Even so, Cass kept these conversations short.

  She said, “It’s warmer where I am now.” She had taken a series of bus rides south and was in New Orleans, where no one particularly cared who you were. Mike Speck had arranged for credit cards and an ID under an assumed name, so at least she wouldn’t have to go on sleeping in parks.

  “I was thinking,” Randy said. “The night Peacham accepts the nomination, why don’t you show up at Jepperson headquarters. We walk out together. That would take the piss out of him!”

  “You get a bounce in the polls, and I go back to playing hearts with Pulitzer Nation at the Alexandria Detention Center? Thanks. Pass.”

  “They’re probably going to lift the warrant on you.” He said it with an unmistakable note of disappointment.

  “I’m riding buses and eating out of Dumpsters, and you’re worried that they’ll lift the warrant for my arrest? Your concern for ‘the woman I love’ is really touching.”

  “Eating out of Dumpsters? Not according to your latest American Express card statement.”

  “Whatever. I did take the bus. Point is, you seem to be enjoying my life on the lam.”

  “Darling, it’s for the cause.”

  “The me cause or the you cause?”

  “The us cause. You’re a symbol. Did you see New York magazine? They called you ‘the New Patty Hearst.’ How about a new photograph of you for the website. Holding a gun. . ..”

  “A gun? Why don’t I just go down in a hail of bullets. A photograph? Are you totally crazy? Let’s make it really easy for them to find me.”

  “Look, darling, I know you’re going through a lot. And I’m proud of you. Oops, I’ve got to dash. Speaking to the League of Transgendered Voters. Hey—we’re up two points in the latest tracking poll. We’ve got the big mo! Call me soon. Love you. Don’t get caught.”

  He sounded as though he were reminding her to bring an umbrella.

  Cass looked out the window of her hotel on Bourbon Street and wished she could call Terry. But they were listening in on his phones, so she would have to wait for his scheduled call at the pay phone on Poydras.

  “Hey, girlie! You wanna party?”

  “Get lost.”

  Cass’s new outfit was a bit on the come-hither side: wig, short skirt, boots. She wondered if she’d overdone it. She was just trying to blend. How ironic it would be—for the cause—if she ended up in the New Orleans jail in a hooker sweep. She was waiting for the pay phone to ring. Pay phones. What a concept. Who thought them up? Finally, it rang.

  “Sorry,” Terry said. “I’m late. But let me tell you why. . ..”

  Someone had called Tucker Strategic Communications, got through to Terry. The person said he had “very interesting information that would be of great value to Cass Devine.” Terry tried to blow him off, but the man persisted. He got Terry’s attention when he told him that he worked for Elderheaven Corporation. He said his information involved a “business deal” between Gideon Payne and—Frank Cohane.

  “He said he had it all on paper,” Terry said. “And computer files. Real hush-hush sort of stuff.”

  Cass thought. “Did he say why he was contacting you?”

  “He didn’t know how to reach you. He wants to give it to you personally. Says he’s your biggest fan. But you know, who isn’t?”

  “Do you think it’s for real?”

  Terry sighed. “Well, your other biggest fan at Elderheaven, Death Angel Clumm, lethally injected thirty-six Wrinklies. Bearing that in mind, I guess I would approach with caution. I don’t know. He sounded real enough. I could have Randy’s guy Speck check him out.”

  “No. That might scare him off,” Cass said. “Speck scares me. You do realize that if the FBI is listening in on your office phone, they now know about this guy.”

  “He’d figured all that out. Said he was calling from a pay phone. He said he’d get me—tomorrow—a safe phone number. He didn’t say how. I’m to give that number to you. Then you call him at three o’clock, the day after tomorrow. He’ll be at the number. I’ll call you tomorrow at the usual time with the number.”

  Terry called her the next day with the phone number. The guy had sent it to him via FedEx, addressed to an employee of Tucker. The envelope inside was marked “Please give to Mr. Tucker URGENT.”

  The next day, at three o’clock, from a pay phone on Napoleon Street, near Pascale’s Manale restaurant in the Garden District, Cass called the number. Jerome picked up on the first ring.

  “Oh, Miss Devine,” he began, “I am such a fan. . ..”

  Chapter 39

  “Reverend,” Gideon’s secretary said, “Monsignor Montefeltro.”

  Gideon hadn’t spoken with Massimo in several months. He wanted to distance himself from him in just about every way—not only because of the deplorable (but ultimately felicitous) Russian business, but mainly because Montefeltro’s papal bull was backfiring spectacularly with the voters. Gideon wanted to make his own case against legal suicide without the heavy breathing of Rome over his shoulder.

  “Call back,” he said.

  “He says it’s very important, Reverend.”

  Gideon hesitated, then picked up. “Massimo, my dear friend, pax vobiscum. How are you?”

  Massimo did not sound well. He spoke in a harried sort of whisper. “Geedeon, I must speak to you.”

  “I’m right here, Massimo.”

  “The Russians. They are impossible!”

  Oh dear, Gideon thought. Massimo knew nothing, as far as Gideon knew, of the relationship with Olga. And he preferred to keep it that way. “How do you mean, Massimo?”

  “Ivan, that enforcer, or pimp, whatever he is—he keeps demanding money from me. I had to give him our Mercedes. Then he wants another Mercedes. It never finishes. We don’t have any cars left at the nunciature! The nuncio is riding in taxis!”

  “Well, don’t give him any Mercedeses.”

  “Every time I tell him. And still he demands money. I cannot give him from the Vatican funds. And I have already given him all of my personal funds. It’s a misery, Geedeon. A dee-saster.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for your trouble, Massimo. But I don’t really
see what you want me to do.”

  “But, Geedeon, you started all of this!”

  “I told you how remorseful I was. We are all sinners before the Lord.”

  “Never mind! Now I am left to deal with the gorilla! While you run for president!”

  “In a very good cause, may I remind you. And by the way, I do wish His Holiness had taken my advice. This absurd bull of yours is doing nobody any good at all. Well, Massimo, our dear Lord faced terrible obstacles in his journey. So we must all cope in our way and offer it up.”

  There was a groan on the other end. “Geedeon. Ivan told me you are now the boyfriend of one of the girls. Is this true?”

  “Well now, I think ‘boyfriend’ would be putting it rather . . .I have undertaken to minister to her. Poor little soul. She is young and very far from home.”

  “Geedeon. Are you fucking this putana?”

  “What a thing to say, Massimo! And you an intimate of His Holiness! Shame on you, sir, shame! This conversation is over. Good day to you, sir!”

  Gideon hung up and wiped his brow and patted his vest pocket, which once again bulged reassuringly with his gold watch, returned to him by his darling.

  He considered. He must tell Olga not to discuss their relationship with others. He was planning to make “this putana”—as Massimo had so coarsely put it—Mrs. Gideon Payne. But he preferred that announcement come in the newspaper, in the wedding pages—or news pages—and not bruited about from the lips of that truncheon-wielding Cossack Ivan or whatever his actual name was. Dear, dear . . .and now he must depart. He was speaking this very noon to the Greater Lower Mississippi Anti–Stem Cell Research Association. Then there was the creationist dinner in Pascagoula and after that the ribbon cutting of the new casino in Biloxi. My, my, my. What a busy whirl these presidential campaigns were. They left no time at all for prayer and reflection.