Supreme Courtship

CHAPTER 12

Why should I be the one to bring that up?” Senator Pebblemacher of the great state of Nevada said with some truculence to Chairman Mitchell during a fraught caucus of half a dozen Committee senators prior to day three of the Cartwright hearings.

For two days, Dexter had been sending his party’s senators out onto the field of battle. They had all returned whimpering. Hanratty of Massachusetts had tried to nail Pepper for her atheism, to which Pepper had calmly replied, “Well, Senator, perhaps if you’d seen your momma get zapped by the Good Lord when you were nine years old, you might feel the same way.” Hanratty had received so many death threats he was now under Secret Service protection, spending nights at several undisclosed locations.

Bouscaran of Delaware, a former judge himself, had tried to trip her up on technicalities, only to have Pepper correct him on the actual wording of Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS. (Hayden’s people had astutely included it in the briefing book.)

Harmookian of Wisconsin wanted to know if she would have granted certiorari in Gretchen’s Frozen Pike v. Milwaukee Block Ice. Pepper cited three precedents, going back to 1956, where the Court had refused to intervene in similar cases, on the grounds that decomposing fish was simply too revolting to contemplate.

“I only thought,” Dexter said to Senator Pebblemacher, trying to sound magnanimous, “you might like to take a shot at her. It’s a low-hanging fruit.”

“Then why don’t you reach for it?” Pebblemacher said suspiciously.

“I’m holding myself in reserve,” Dexter said.

“What do you think this is? Battle of the Bulge?”

“Yeah,” said Murmelly of the great state of Idaho. “When are you going join the fight, Dexter?”

“All in good time,” Dexter said. “All in good time. People, people. Come on. Let’s keep it together.” He appealed to Pebblemacher. “Jimbo, look, you can’t miss with this one. Her father practically invited Jack Ruby to shoot Oswald.”

“For God’s sake, Dexter, she wasn’t even born in 1963. What the hell’s this got to do with her?”

“I’m not saying she was involved personally,” Dexter said. “But the whole thing stinks. And the mother. Killed by lightning? Don’t you think that’s a little bit too pat? My Riders found someone who says he was in the ER when they brought her in and he’ll swear she was still alive.”

“Proving what?” Pebblemacher said, arms crossing defiantly over his chest.

Dexter lowered his voice. “Well, our information is that they, uh, finished her off there.”

Pebblemacher snorted. “You want to make that case? Be. My. Guest.”

Dexter shrugged. “Suit yourself, Jimbo. Just thought you were a team player. Anyone?”

A half-dozen senators stared back silently at their chairman.

“All right then. But I think we’re missing an opportunity here.”

Dexter turned to Senator Ramos y Gualtapo of the great state of Florida. “Silvia,” he said. “Hit her on the commerce clause. That answer she gave Fritz yesterday on Feinhard v. Moon-she was on thin ice. I could hear it cracking.”

Senator Ramos y Gualtapo gave Chairman Mitchell a dubious look. “I didn’t hear any ice cracking.”

“Well, I think,” Dexter said, tapping the table impatiently with his pen, “that she’s vulnerable on interstate commerce.”

“When are you going to question her, Dexter?” Silvia said.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you worry,” he said calmly. “I’ve got questions for Judge Cartwright. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes.”

“Like what?”

“All in good time.”

“You haven’t said boo so far,” said Senator Bloggwell of the great state of Mississippi. “All you do is make goo-goo eyes at her.”

The senators murmured. Murmuring is one of the higher senatorial arts.

“You let her run over Harriett,” said Senator Manxzen of the great but not spacious state of Rhode Island. “Wearing cleats.”

“Harriett Shimmerman is as tough as aluminum siding,” Dexter said. “She didn’t need any help from me.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Senator Ezratty of the occasionally great state of North Carolina. “Is that why I found her sobbing in the cloakroom?”

“No, no, no, no,” Dexter said. “That was on account of her dog. It got cancer. Leukemia. Some fatal dog something.”

“That was last week.”

“Well, maybe the dog had a relapse. Look, people. I am going to hold Judge Cartwright’s little piggies to the fire, don’t you doubt it. In the meantime, I don’t think any useful purpose would be served by…”

“Telling us what you’re going to ask her?” Senator Ramos y Gualtapo said.

“No, Silvia. By broadcasting our strategy,” Dexter said. “Let’s get it together, people. She’s got us all running around in nineteen different directions.”

“Well, unless you come up with a smoking gun, Mr. Chairman,” said Senator Murfledorken of the great but somewhat pointless state of North Dakota, “I might as well tell you I’m going to vote for her.”

The senators murmured superbly.

Dexter shook his head. “Ralph, that is so… not helpful.”

“Would you like to see my mail?” Murfledorken replied. “I can’t get in the door of my office it’s piled up so high in the hall. My Web browser crashed last night from all my e-mail. I’m not going to commit hara-kiri over her. She seems all right to me. If you want to know the truth, I like her.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Ralph,” Mitchell said, “voting for that”-he was about to say woman when he caught Silvia glowering at him-“TV personality. I mean, it would go against every sacredly held principle we’re sworn to uphold. My God. Do you realize this Committee is the only thing standing between the Supreme Court of the United States and…”

“What?” Silvia said.

“Mediocrity.”

“I don’t find her so mediocre.”

“Me, neither.”

“People. People. Let’s all just take a deep breath…”

But by day three of the Cartwright hearings, it was clear that the air was going out of-not into-the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senators who had dared to ask even mildly snarky questions of Judge Cartwright were receiving death threats-the kind that specify what caliber bullet will be used. It was abundantly, pellucidly clear that the people wanted Judge Pepper. Even President Vanderdamp’s approval ratings had shot up-by almost ten points.

“President Vanderdamp,” the Financial Times commented wryly, “finally appears to have done something politically astute-almost certainly by accident.”

After the unhappy caucus had huffed and stomped its way out of Senator Mitchell’s office, Dexter summoned his chief of staff, a man named Pickerill.

“What was that stuff the Russians used on the ex-KGB guy? The radioactive poison. Do we have any? A few drops in her water pitcher… What a catastrophe. Anything from the Riders?”

“There is something, but it’s-not much.”

Dexter had been praying for some eleventh-hour smoking gun, but the Wraith Riders had come back from their investigation, shrieking and neighing and wailing, with empty hands. Pepper Cartwright had not had an abortion; had not dated anyone named bin Laden; had not distributed pamphlets calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government; snorted cocaine; called anyone by a racial epithet. She’d sniffled through the final scenes of To Kill a Mockingbird. There had been a brief, giddy moment of hope when it was learned that Cartwright and Bixby’s housekeeper was Nicaraguan, but it had been cruelly dashed when it turned out they were legally sponsoring her for a green card and citizenship.

“Let’s have it,” Dexter said.

“Senior year at her boarding school, she and another girl put shaving cream on the headmistress’s toilet seat.”

Dexter stared at his chief of staff. “Well, that’ll drive a stake through her heart.”

“Sorry, Senator. We’ll keep trying.”

And so, on the brink of the final day of the Cartwright hearings, Senator Dexter Mitchell found himself standing on a diving board above a large pool full of-nothing.

“Good morning,” he said, giving the gavel handle the lightest little tippy-tap. “Senator Ramos y Gualtapo, your witness.”

Silvia dutifully asked Judge Cartwright a technical question about the applicability of the commerce clause.

“Well, Senator,” Pepper said, “as you know, in the nineteen eighties the Court was divided and reversed itself on Garcia v. San Antonio Transit Authority…” Silvia nodded, as though thoroughly versed in the case, shooting a venomous glance in Dexter’s direction. Dexter for his part was thinking, I’ve seen episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood that were more contentious. Why don’t you just ask her for her recipe for upside-down pineapple cake?

Silvia finished. “Thank you, Judge Cartwright. I have no further questions.”

And so, finally, it was Senator Dexter Mitchell’s turn. There had been much speculation about this moment. All eyes were on him. Normally he reveled in the sensation. Not today.

Even Terry, his wife, high school sweetheart, life’s companion, sharer of his heart’s secrets, lover, best friend, mother of their attractive children, had said to him that morning over the shredded mini-wheat, “I hope you’re not planning to embarrass yourself with Judge Cartwright.”

Planning? Planning? To be rendered splutteringly speechless, with a mouthful of shredded mini-wheat, on this day of days, by his own… wife? Yes, honey, he felt like saying, funny you should mention it. I was up all night “planning” how to make myself look like a complete fool on national television. Do you have any tips for me? How about if I blew my nose on Senator Tronkmeyer’s necktie? Do you think that would bring about the desired level of embarrassment? Or should I simultaneously summon a thermonuclear fart right as I’m boring in on her interpretation of the equal protection clause?

“I think she’s terrific,” Terry continued, not looking up from her newspaper.

“Thank you, honey,” Dexter said, “for the input.”

“Anytime,” Terry said, still not looking up.

“Judge Cartwright,” Dexter Mitchell began, leaning forward as he faced Pepper. There behind her was Graydon Clenndennynn, looking like a public library stone lion. There was the grandfather, Sheriff JJ, droopy mustache and all. His arms had been folded tightly across his chest for three days now as he scowled at the Judiciary Committee. Mess with my little girl, and I’ll cut out your livers. Next to him the Mexican woman. And there’s the Reverend Roscoe. Nice going with Ruby, there, Reverend… No, Dexter warned himself, don’t go there.

Dexter cleared his throat. “Judge Cartwright, were you… You must have been pretty surprised when President Vanderdamp nominated you for this job.”

“Is that a question, Senator, or a statement of the screamingly obvious?”

[Laughter.]

“Ha-ha,” Dexter nodded, “quite right. Yes, yes, I suppose you must have been. Because someone in your… position, that is, in your line of work, wouldn’t normally… I guess what I’m trying to get at-”

“Let me throw you a lifeline, Senator,” Pepper said. “The President’s telephone call knocked me flatter than butterfly roadkill. I stipulate that, Senator. But didn’t we kind of establish that about five minutes into these hearings?”

[Laughter.]

“Yes. Yes… Right you are, Judge.”

“It would take someone with bigger cojones than I have,” Pepper continued, giving Dexter a foxy look that only the two of them-along with the President, Graydon Clenndennynn, and Hayden Cork-could fully appreciate, “to ask for this. It’s not the sort of job anyone would solicit outright. Is it?”

This moment in the Cartwright hearings has been much discussed. Many have wondered why Senator Mitchell never paused to ask for a clarification of the meaning of “cojones.” Instead, he seemed to recoil slightly and stammer, “Judge, you’ve done, in my view, a-a-a very thorough, indeed, excellent job of answering this Committee’s questions.”

Pepper, staring evenly, said, “Very generous of you, sir.”

“There were those on the Committee,” Dexter said tsk-tskily, “who wanted to ask-to raise certain issues, going back… well, a long way.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed.

“But it was decided that the Committee would not, so to speak, go there.”

Dexter Mitchell’s face suddenly and weirdly turned exuberantly magnanimous, like that of someone who has just decided to give away his entire fortune at the stroke of a pen.

“Yes,” he beamed. “And if I may say so myself, that was the right decision.”

His fellow Committee members stared at their chairman, jaws agape.

“As chair of this distinguished Committee, I feel strongly that no decent purpose would be accomplished by going there. No, no. And so, Judge, I am pleased-indeed, very pleased-to say, to declare right here and now, without further delay, that it is the collective sense of this Committee that your nomination is…”

Dexter let it hang there a moment, a little bright origami kite wafting on lung-warmed thermals.

“… likely, indeed almost certain to be approved by this Committee.”

A shiver of pleasure went through the room, and, through the airwaves, beyond into the land. For a moment, the entire country exhaled together, as a vast, happy ahhh spread from sea to shining sea, rippling the amber waves of grain as it went.

“Now,” Dexter said, looking abruptly serious, “this is not to say that I did not entertain certain…”

The ahhh paused, hovered tremulously over the Great Plains.

“… call them… if you might… well, misgivings…”

Amber waves of grain trembled.

Dexter spoke gravely, as if trying to look like a Daniel Chester French statue of himself. “I have, of course, certain responsibilities, transient and historical… but there are times-and this, surely, is one of them-when a leader, in order to lead, must follow. And so, let me be the first to say, as leader, that I will vote to approve your nomination.”

The room erupted into applause. The Committee members, most of whom were by now casting withering looks at their sure-to-be transient “leader,” began one by one to join in the applause.