Boomsday

by Christopher Taylor Buckley

  “Oh shit,” Cass said. She immediately added, “That was off the record.”

  The reporter said he wouldn’t be able to quote her exactly, as the Dispatch was a family paper, but that he would have to quote her as uttering an expletive.

  She told Terry about the call.

  “‘Personal goddess’?” he said. “Uch.”

  “I feel like Transitioning myself.”

  “Why so glum?” Terry said. “I thought women liked being on pedestals.”

  “I’m dead meat,” Cass said.

  “Cass, you didn’t…know this creep?”

  “Of course not. I get thousands of requests for autographed photos.”

  “Why did you write, ‘Keep up the good work’?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t remember every autograph, for God’s sake. He probably wrote that he was a nurse or-I don’t know. You don’t think I’d encourage a freelance mass murderer?”

  “You weren’t, like, urging him to put people to sleep.”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Terry said, “that’s a relief. Good to know that one of my senior vice presidents isn’t moonlighting advising serial murderers.”

  “Hilarious,” Cass said. “So hilarious.”

  Not long afterward, two FBI agents appeared in the reception room of Tucker Strategic Communications.

  “Your friends are back,” Terry alerted Cass by intercom. “It’s always nice to have a couple of G-men in the waiting room. It really impresses clients. Especially the big corporate ones.”

  “Terry, I’m sorry about this. But-”

  “Just don’t tell them anything until I get Allen. It’s always good to talk to Allen. He’s a great guy, and he only charges seven hundred an hour. Which, under the circumstances, is going to come out of your next paycheck instead of mine.”

  Allen Snyder arrived and conducted a $700 discussion with the FBI agents over the finer points of something called Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Cass and Terry, listening in, gathered that it had to do with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and “probable cause”-in this instance for searching the hard drives of Cass’s computers. Allen eloquently maintained that they had no such probable cause. The agents argued that they did, and if it came to that, they would be more than happy to return with a search warrant.

  “May I have a word with my client?” he said. The FBI men assented in the laconic way of their ilk.

  Allen, Cass, and Terry huddled in another office.

  “Is there anything on the computer?” Allen asked.

  “Like what?” Cass said. “Coded messages to the Death Angel of Budding Grove telling him to exterminate a whole nursing home?”

  “I meant, is there anything on the computers that you wouldn’t want them to see? Personal matters.…”

  “I-I mean-I keep a diary.”

  Allen nodded gravely. “A diary.”

  “It’s password protected. But the FBI will probably figure out a way through it.”

  “Is there anything in the diary that could cause you a problem?”

  “You mean like sex stuff?”

  Allen blushed.

  “I’d just as soon not have the FBI poring over my diary,” Cass said, flustered. “There are no lesbian fantasies or numbers of private banking accounts in the Cayman Islands or plots to assassinate the president or Osama bin Laden’s private cell phone number.…?But it’s a diary. I tell it things. That’s what you do with a diary.”

  Terry groaned.

  “All right,” Allen said in calming tones. “I’m going to insist that they have no probable cause. At the same time, I don’t think we want headlines saying that we’re refusing to cooperate with an FBI investigation into”-he gave Terry a weary glance-“serial murders.”

  When the agents and Allen had left, Terry said, “Diary?”

  “So?”

  “It’s a company computer.”

  “Oh, please. If you’re worried about the FBI finding incriminating material on my company computer, I’d worry more about the company-related stuff. Like your proposal to the government of North Korea about putting on that celebrity pro-am golf tournament in Pyongyang. Or our pitch to ExxonMobil for the ‘Adopt a Sea Otter’ plan. Or the media plan for the Mink Ranchers Association about how more people get rabies from minks than from rats. Or would you rather worry about my diary?”

  Terry, color draining from his face, said. “I better call the IT people. We’ve got some deleting to do.”

  “What about damage control?”

  “Delete first, control damage later.”

  The senator from the great state of Massachusetts called. He’d heard about the “personal goddess” comment and the “Keep up the good work.” He said, “Don’t worry. I’ve thought it all through. We’re going to be fine. You and Terry could spin your way out of a hurricane. By the way, I won’t be back in town for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going on a listening tour. If I’m going to be a national candidate, I’ve got to get myself out there. I’ll check in from the road. Good luck!”

  It had been a long day. Terry and Cass repaired that night to the Unnamed Source, a bar around the corner from the office. She told him about the call from Randy.

  “A ‘listening tour’?” Terry snorted into his bourbon.

  Cass said, “The first listening tour in history took place in France, in 1848. It was conducted by a man named Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. One of the leaders of the revolution of 1848. One day he saw a mob going by his window. He jumped up and said, ‘There go the people! I must follow them! I am their leader!’”

  The TV over the bar showed Arthur Clumm, Nurse of the Year, making another fashion statement in bright orange with stainless steel wrist and ankle accessories.

  Terry waved over the bartender. “Would you turn that thing to ESPN?” The bartender went to find the remote control. Cass idly watched the “crawl” at the bottom of the screen, the distracting ticker tape of generally pointless news bulletins.

  … SHARES OF ELDERHEAVEN CORP STOCK DOWN 8% IN WAKE OF BUDDING GROVE FACILITY DEATHS…

  In the next instant, the screen switched to a Major League Baseball player who had gained seventy-five pounds in less than a year, all of it muscle. His lawyer, sitting next to him at a table, was staunchly averring that his client had never taken steroids and was pounding his fist on the table, complaining about the “unconscionably sloppy custody chain with these urine samples.”

  “Merciful Jesus,” Gideon Payne was saying over the phone. He had loosened his tie and with his free hand was waving off a minion who was approaching with a face of woe. “How much of it do we own?…Thirty percent?” Gideon’s eyes darted back and forth like beads in an abacus. “That’s minority ownership.…?I know it’s almost a third, Sidney, I can count…but it’s still…minority…We don’t…we don’t…We do? Well, who in the name of all angels and archangels signed off on that dumb-ass scheme?…What is the Elderheaven Corporation doing administering the personnel division of a nursing home in Blooming…Budding, whatever Grove-”

  “Reverend,” interrupted one of Gideon’s minions, “it’s that reporter from The New York Times again. He says-”

  “Go. Away,” Gideon mouthed. “Now you look here, Sidney. You’re going to have to deal with this out of your office. I need space around me on this. A lot of space. Vast space. I want you to create a, a, desert around me. You’re the chief operating officer of Elderheaven Corporation. So assume the mantle of chief and start operating. As far as I am concerned, I wasn’t in the same room when this deal was signed with Budding Grove. I was not in the country. I was not on the planet. Not in the same solar system.”

  Gideon hung up, exhausted and in a molar-grinding fury. The minion was hovering.

  “What do you want, Templeton?”

  The minion Templeton presented Gideon with a list of the media calls that had come in following the revelation that Arthur Clumm, Deat
h Angel, was technically on Gideon’s payroll.

  The Financial Times…The New York Times…The Washington Post…USA Today…the Los Angeles Times…The Wall Street Journal…the Jerusalem Post...?The Jerusalem Post? For God’s sake.…?

  Gideon wiped his brow with a handkerchief, dismissed Templeton, and looked up at the ceiling and muttered, “You’re not working with me today, Lord.”

  Cass and Terry had made a $100 bet, as they rushed back to the office from the Unnamed Source with renewed spring in their step, as to how long before Senator Randolph K. Jepperson called, pretending not to have heard the news about Gideon Payne’s one-third ownership of the Budding Grove-“Budding Grave” in the tabloid press-nursing facility; furthermore, to announce that he was abandoning his “listening tour” because there was no one out there really worth listening to and was ready to get back to sitting on the Transitioning commission. Cass bet that he would call in before noon the next day. Terry bet after noon. Randy’s call came at twelve-fifteen p.m., so they decided to spend the $100 on a good, splurgy lunch at the Calcutta Club.

  Cass said, “What would you say if I extended an olive branch to Gideon?”

  Terry tore off a piece of naan and dipped it in crispy okra and yogurt. “Fine, as long as you were smacking him across the face with it.”

  Cass smiled and forked a piece of Manchurian cauliflower. Terry popped some chicken tikka masala into his mouth.

  “Right now I would guess he’s frantically building some kind of moat around himself,” Terry said. “He didn’t hire this wacko. He didn’t know. Elderheaven’s a huge company. Yada yada. Why should he be held responsible? He’s just as horrified as anyone. More horrified. More horrified than you, anyway. You were this hairball’s inspiration. His ‘personal goddess.’ Sending him autographed photos saying, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! Keep up the good work!’”

  Cass dabbed a bit of bhindi from her lips. “What we ought to be doing is calling time-out to Gideon’s and my catfight and shifting the spotlight onto Randy.”

  “I’m kind of enjoying the catfight. Everyone is. Why cancel the best show on TV?”

  “Not canceling, entirely. But shifting the focus. Look, it’s worked, in a way, the whole Transitioning thing. It’s got the government focused and on the defensive. If he’s really got a shot at the vice presidency.”

  Terry stared, a forkful of karavee bhindi suspended in midair. “You don’t honestly think they’re going to give it to him, do you?”

  “Why take chances? You were the one always telling me you wanted to elect someone president.”

  “Sure. I also wanted to sleep with Grace Kelly, play with the Rolling Stones, and throw the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Instead I ended up running a beauty parlor on K Street for corporate criminals. Life is funny sometimes.”

  “So, here’s your shot. This could be one of those moments of synchronicity. The stars are in alignment.”

  Terry looked up at the ceiling. “Those are light bulbs, not stars.”

  “You want to throw a winning touchdown? Put on your spikes. The game’s started.”

  “What about Transitioning?” Terry said.

  “Meta-issue. Pointless now. I was trying to get my generation out from under this Everest of debt. Randy just added more to it with his giveaways. Jumping into bed with the Boomer lobbies. Your generation. Honestly.”

  “Those people don’t speak for me.”

  “Oh, come on. You know what the Boomer concept of sacrifice consists of? Three-day ground instead of overnight air delivery on your fifty-inch plasma screen high-def TV. Why did I ever think that Boomers would step up to the plate and do something altruistic? And don’t tell me about Bill Gates giving away all his money. He’s got tons left.”

  “So Miss Go Long is giving up?” Terry said.

  “The FBI wants to seize my computers to see if I’ve been issuing kill orders to deranged male nurses. Right now I’m not in a position to go long on advocating legal suicide.”

  “See your point. Jesus, that reminds me-we gotta delete those files.”

  “But with the right handling, I think we could give the senator from the great state of Massachusetts a shove toward the Oval Office. Whatever your personal feelings for him. Speaking of which,” Cass said, “he seems to have asked me to, uh, marry him.”

  Terry stared. “You buried the lead.”

  “I was going to mention it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Cass said. “A Washington answer. I told him I’d get back to him.”

  Chapter 26

  “Well, what in the name of God does the FBI know?”

  The president, in no good mood, as usual, spoke from an exercise treadmill. His physician-a four-star U.S. Navy admiral-had admonished him sternly about his blood pressure and sedentary regimen. Bucky Trumble, whose own BP and cholesterol levels were nothing to boast about, stood close by in the manner of courtier, having to raise his voice over the whirr of the rubber belt and rollers.

  “They don’t think this Clumm character was taking orders from her. There are no phone records to or from. Or e-mails. Still, they want to look at her computers, but-”

  “If there’s no e-mail on his computer, why would there be any on her damn computer?”

  “Well, sir…” A gym, even one with only two people in it, not counting Secret Service, is no place for nuanced conversation, and what Bucky had to tell the president was all nuance, little black dandelions of scheming. “I was thinking that it might be interesting to see what’s on her computer. If you see what I mean.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you see what I mean. Sir.”

  The president grunted. “You don’t have to shout. Yeah, yeah. Well, what’s holding them up? Seize the fucking computer. They’re the FBI, aren’t they? You get a warrant, you say, ‘Hand over the computer.’ What’s the big deal?”

  “The Fourth Amendment?”

  “Fuck the Fourth Amendment.”

  “That would be the FBI’s view of it, sir, but her lawyer is maintaining a different interpretation.”

  The president pressed “Stop” and climbed off the treadmill. He was breathing heavily and glistening with sweat.

  “The problem, sir,” Bucky continued in a lower voice, grateful for the cessation of the machinery, “is that to the extent we-that is, the attorney general and the FBI-put her in the hot seat, it could impact on our friend the Reverend Payne.”

  “Prick.”

  “Yes, sir, but nonetheless, our prick. Turns out that his nursing home corporation, Elderheaven, owns a one-third stake in the Budding Grove home where the incidents took place-”

  “Incidents? Place was a damn slaughterhouse.”

  “Yes. And the families of the thirty-six dearly departed are making quite a hullabaloo.…”

  A smile came over the president’s face. “Well, isn’t that a damn shame.”

  “But let us bear in mind, sir, that his support among the pro-lifers and evangelicals is going to be critical next fall. We’re going to need every single vote. So to the extent-I’m speaking hypothetically here, you understand-to the extent that Cassandra Devine were…somehow linked to this madman…that would certainly take the heat off of Gideon.”

  “Hm. Yeah. Go on.”

  “And to the extent that Cassandra Devine was implicated in a serial murder investigation, well…it would collaterally implicate Senator Jepperson. Problems solved.”

  The president gave Bucky an appreciative look. “Keep going.”

  “Jepperson and Devine are intimately linked. There’s even talk that they might marry.”

  “Buck, is this one of those situations where I don’t really want to hear the rest of what you have to say?”

  “I don’t see any need to drown you in details,” Bucky Trumble said, smiling. “You’ve got a country to run.”

  “Awfully good of you to come, Frank, on such short notice,” Bucky Trumble said to Frank Cohane.

  “No problem,
” Frank Cohane said without bothering to sound sincere. He was wondering why this urgently requested interview was taking place not in the Oval Office, or at least somewhere in the West Wing of the White House, but in a decidedly downscale restaurant of indeterminate Oriental orientation called Wok’n Roll, in a decidedly downscale neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. From the characters outside on the sidewalk, it looked more like downtown Santo Domingo or Citй-Soleil than an exurb of the capital city of the United States. The place felt-uch-sticky. At this stage in his life, Frank was more accustomed to starred Michelin restaurants.

  Frank leaned in toward Bucky across the table. His body language said, I don’t want to be here, so why don’t you get right to the point.

  “Frank, you know all about computers.”

  “Bucky,” Frank said, “I own a software company with a market cap of fourteen billion. So, yeah, I guess I ‘know all about computers.’”

  “I was wondering if we might enlist your help on a somewhat sensitive matter.”

  Frank listened to what Bucky Trumble proposed. Bucky managed to make it sound like just an elaborate fraternity prank.

  “Jesus, Bucky.”

  “Is it technically feasible?”

  Frank stared back. “Yeah. And technically illegal.”

  “One day President Theodore Roosevelt was discussing a matter with Philander Knox, his attorney general. Knox said, ‘Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.’”

  “That’s a really inspiring story, Bucky. And how did it turn out?”

  “Everyone lived happily ever after, prospered, and died in their sleep, old men.” Bucky stood and put out his hand. “The president said to give you his very best, Frank, and to let you know how grateful he is for your continued support. He also said to tell you how much he’s looking forward to showing you just how grateful he is.” Bucky winked. “At the start of Peacham version two. Thanks for making the trip east.”