Supreme Courtship (6 page)
“Buddy,” Pepper said, “we try civil-type cases. A, people don’t get sent to jail for those, and B, I’m not a real judge anymore. So I’m not getting how we could send them to jail.”
“I thought of that,” Buddy said. “Instead of people signing these wimpy-ass agreements where they’re contractually bound to abide by your decisions—if they lose, they have to serve actual time.”
“What time? I can’t send people to jail. I’m not a real judge. What am I supposed to do, call up the Metropolitan Detention Center and say, ‘Judge Cartwright here, do me a favor, would you, and put some folks in jail for me?’ ”
“No—we build our
own
jail,” Buddy said, smiling triumphantly.
“What are you talking about?”
“With cameras in every cell. Say you lose your case—you get sent to the slammer. Our own slammer. For, like, a week or whatever. We create a prison. Build our own. Somewhere grim. Down south. With guard towers and—a
moat
. A shark-filled moat. Throw in some alligators. Do alligators and sharks mix?”
“I’d have to get back to you on that,” Pepper said.
“I hadn’t even thought of that until now. The guards would have uniforms. Darth Vader–type. Scary. And the prisoners—they’d have uniforms. They’d get points for good behavior, et cetera, so you could get out a day early or whatever. And—Jesus!—a cash prize if they
escape
.”
Pepper tried to concentrate on chopping radishes for the salad. “And if they get eaten by the sharks and alligators?”
“I’ll talk to Legal about it. Figure something out. But don’t you see it?
Oz
meets
Survivor
.
*
It could be incredible. What do you think?”
“Well, darling, you sure are innovative on the weekends. Let me think about it,” Pepper said, continuing to chop.
H
AYDEN
C
ORK
had been at his desk for only an hour on Monday morning and already he was having a bad day.
“Sir, all I’m asking is that we postpone further discussion until Mr. Clenndennynn returns. His plane gets into Andrews at—”
Dammit,
Hayden caught himself.
Bad slip.
“Andrews?” the President said, looking up from his paperwork. “Since when do private jets land at U.S. Air Force bases?”
“He’s coming in on a military plane, sir. I sent one to bring him back.”
Hayden Cork braced for a stern lecture on wasteful government spending. Instead the President said, “Good work, Hayden.”
“Sir?”
“He’s going to shepherd her nomination through the Senate. That is,” the President chuckled, “if he can tear himself away long enough from helping overpaid CEOs negotiate debt relief with Chinese commies.” The President was of the old school. He still called it Red China, in private.
“Sir,” Hayden said plunging deeper into gloom, “I’m not sure how he’s going to react to this . . . whole idea.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Graydon’s an old pro. He’ll get it straightaway. And if it goes down in flames, he’ll put the word out,
What else could I do? The President asked me to do it as a personal favor.
Crafty old badger.”
“Sir, would you consider just
meeting
with Runningwater?” Hayden said. “I really think you’ll be dazzled by him. His tribe was celebrated for—”
“Hayden,” said the President, “get with the program.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
I
T IS A CLICHÉ
in Washington that the most dangerous place to find yourself is between a politician and a TV camera or microphone, but in the case of Senator Dexter Mitchell the cliché had acquired a kind of Darwinian perfection. Dexter Mitchell loved—lived—to talk. He had uttered his first full sentence at the age of fourteen months and hadn’t stopped since.
Once, famously, on his way into a state funeral at the National Cathedral, a reporter for one of the smaller cable TV new channels stepped forward to ask for a brief comment. One hour and fifteen minutes later, Senator Mitchell was still talking as the casket emerged, carried by the honor guard. One of his fellow senators was heard to remark, “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to ask him to deliver the eulogy?” The tape of the interview is a cult classic and plays three or four times a year during the wee hours. Some consider it the best argument around for
24/7
cable TV.
Dexter was now in his midfifties, at the age when men begin to take cholesterol-lowering and penis-elevating medications. Now in his third decade of public service, he had a solid career behind him: prosecutor, congressman, three-term senator from the great state of Connecticut. For the last four years, he had been Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, generally referred to as “the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.” And true enough: if you wanted to wield a federal gavel, you first had to get past his.
He was good-looking, in a shiny sort of way. He’d had his front teeth capped. They were now so blindingly white that when he bared them, you could almost hear a little
tingg!
and see a star of light reflect off the incisor, just like in the commercials. He cheerfully admitted to having Botox injections, and even had a nice line about it: “I need all the help I can get. My job involves a lot of frowning.” He had an attractive wife named Terry, attractive children, and an attractive beagle named Amtrak. (Senator Mitchell sat on the Transportation Subcommittee and fought fiercely for subsidies for America’s railroads, especially the one that ferried him from Stamford to Washington and back.)
If a computer were programmed to design a president of the United States, it might very well generate Dexter Mitchell. Everything about him seemed, indeed, calculated. And yet for all his qualifications, Dexter somehow added up to less than the sum of his considerable parts. His epic loquacity was not an asset. Successive campaign advisers had tried without success to get him to give briefer answers, but nothing had stemmed the logorrheic tide, the tsunami of subordinate clauses and parenthetical asides, the inexorable mudslide of anecdotage. His campaign “listening tours” were occasions of mirth among political reporters, since it was the people he met who did the listening. Dexter Mitchell would happily express himself on any issue, at any time, at any place.
He had run for president three times. The first time, he raised $
12
million and came in third in the Iowa caucus.
*
The second time, he raised $
20
million and came in fourth. The third time, he raised $
22
million and came in seventh. He was undeterred. Somewhere over the rainbow he heard the people chanting,
Mit-chell! Mit-chell!
But by now he had begun to acquire a slightly used feel; “certifiably preowned,” as one pundit put it uncharitably.
When he declared his intention to run a fourth time, his wife, now working as a K Street lobbyist representing—as it happened—the U.S. rail industry, replied in no uncertain terms that she would not spend one more weekend, one more day, one more hour, one more minute at some coffee shop in Iowa, pretending to care about ethanol, or indeed any biofuel; or for that matter about the price of wheat, corn, soy, or anything that emerged from the loamy topsoil of the Hawkeye State. Dexter sulked off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to drown his sorrow in feverish multilateral panel discussions on climate change and globalization.
Contemplating his thwarted presidential ambition, Dexter decided that a more sensible—and permanent—avenue to greatness would be to become a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And why shouldn’t he? He was ideal for the job. In fact, he asked himself, why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? He berated his friends for not having thought of it first.
It was this conviction, along with a refreshing absence of modesty, that had prompted him to call Hayden Cork some months before and request an Oval Office meeting with the President. He gave an equivocal reason, saying only that it was “important and confidential.” The President groaned at the prospect, but agreed.
On arriving, Dexter plunked himself down and said to the President (we know all this from a tape recording in the archives at the Vanderdamp Library): “My information is that Brinnin’s gone nuttier than a granola bar. You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I’ve always respected you.” (Three weeks before, Dexter had called President Vanderdamp “the worst president since Warren G. Harding.”) “But I say let’s put aside whatever philosophical disagreements we have. I’d like you to consider putting my name forward as a successor to Brinnin.”
There is a brief, perhaps eloquent, silence on the tape. Then Dexter continues: “Now, why do I propose myself? Frankly, because I think I’m the right person for the job. Why do I think that? I’ve narrowed it down to five reasons. Well, six. Don—if I may—when I first started practicing law over three decades ago . . .”
The tape continues on for twenty-six minutes. In the background, you can hear the President reaching for an imaginary—and much craved—
EJECT
button. At several points he tries to arrest the wall of sound with comments like, “I promise to give it the consideration it deserves.” But Mitchell, having only gotten as far as reason number three (paragraph four), soldiers on.
Eventually, a door opens and an aide advises the President that his next meeting is now imminent (an almost certain lie). Vanderdamp’s exhalation after the door has closed on his loquacious visitor is reminiscent of a man who has at long last reached a desperately sought urinal.
The President did not nominate Dexter Mitchell to succeed Justice Brinnin, for at least five reasons. When Cooney’s nomination was released to the press, the President told Hayden Cork to leak it that Mitchell’s name had not been on the short list—or even on the long list. (The ever-protective Hayden wisely ignored the instruction.) Mitchell was thus, to put it mildly, undisposed to treat the President’s nominees kindly. Nor did he. After wiping Cooney’s and Burrows’s blood and brain matter from his gavel, he smiled and said—with uncharacteristic concision—“Next?”
I
t was just after four o’clock on Monday, which gave Pepper less than an hour to give the President her answer.
The day’s taping had gone well. Buddy was in a good mood. She was summoning the courage to introduce the dreaded topic when he said, “You given any more thought to my idea?”
“What idea, sug?” she said.
“The prison,” he said excitedly, as if suggesting they hop on the next flight to Paris.
“Baby, something’s sort of . . . come up.”
Pepper took a deep breath and explained the reason behind the visit to Camp David. Buddy listened in silence. He looked like a man being informed by his doctor that the MRI had found something.
“I guess he is a fan,” Buddy said.
“It would appear.”
“So,” Buddy said, “what did you tell him?”
“Well, I wasn’t about to tell him anything until you and I had a chance to talk it over.”
Buddy let out what sounded like a sigh of relief.
“What was that?” Pepper said.
“Jesus, you had me going there. I thought you’d accepted.”
“No. But I’d kinda come around to thinking that I might. I need to call him with an answer before five.”
“Well, better call him.”
“Oh, thanks, honey. I really—”
“And tell him you can’t.”
Pepper stared. “Why would I tell him that?”
Buddy gestured, as if the answer were self-evident. “Baby, we’re going into Sweeps Week.”
“Sweeps Week trumps . . . this?”
“Ah, look,” Buddy said, “Vanderdamp’s a total loser. They’re about to impeach him. Look what happened to his last two nominees—and they were
serious
guys.”
“If you’re trying to talk me out of this,” Pepper said somewhat coolly, “you’re not going about it the right way.”
“Hey, I think it’s great he asked you. Fantastic publicity for the show. Hadn’t thought of that.”
“Buddy,” Pepper said. “We are not having a satisfactory conversation here.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. You might try something like, ‘Congratulations, honey. Right proud of you.’ ”
“Congratulations. Proud of you.”
“You left out the ‘honey.’ And don’t choke yourself getting too excited.”
“Baby, this makes no sense.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“Did you also tell him you have two years to go on your contract?”
“No, we didn’t really get into that.”
“You can’t just walk away from everything we’ve created,” Buddy said.
“Baby, it’s the Supreme Court. My country’s calling.”
“Well, tell it to call back.”
“Sweetheart—”
“You have obligations, Pepper. And not just to me. What about your millions of devoted viewers? Are you just going to tell them ‘Fuck off’?”
“Actually,” Pepper said, “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way. And if they’re really fans, I don’t suppose they’re going to shoot themselves on account of I’m moving on from a TV show to the Supreme Court.”
“This ‘TV show,’ as you put it so condescendingly, is the only reason you’ve been asked to
sit
on the Court.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Pepper said, folding her arms across her chest.
“I get it. I’m the one you’re telling to fuck off.”
“No,” Pepper said, “but keep this up and you might just hear those very words before this conversation is concluded.”
“You can’t do this to me.”
“I’m not doing it
to
you. And by the way, who appointed you center of the universe?”
“You want to go to court? Fine, let’s go to court. For breach of contract!”
“Well, aren’t you the thorny rose.” Pepper sighed. “Thank you for being such a honeybee for me and making the moment so special. I’ve got to call the President. You want to stick around and tell him yourself to go fuck himself?”
T
uesday morning, Senator Dexter Mitchell was in his office on Capitol Hill when the phone rang. Graydon Clenndennynn calling, mandarin in chief.
