Supreme Courtship

CHAPTER 17

Pepper was nervous, going into her first conference. Her stomach felt like a butterfly farm.

Justices vote in order of seniority, so she’d go last. As the justices began voting on Swayle, she prayed that there would be a clear majority before it got to her. Not today. The Hardwether Court was as divided as the Korean peninsula. When Crispus cast his vote against, it became 4-4. All eyes were on Pepper.

“Justice Cartwright?” the Chief Justice said gently. He didn’t seem comfortable calling her “Pepper.”

“I…”

She felt sixteen eyeballs boring into her like drills. Paige Plympton had warned Pepper beforehand that Hardwether didn’t go in for lengthy debate in conference. “He runs a pretty swift ship,” she said. This was not a debating society.

Every atom in every fiber of Pepper Cartwright screamed at her to vote against Jimmy James Swayle. Rule in favor of a bank robber who felt aggrieved because his gun didn’t fire? If it had been Courtroom Six, Buddy would have had workmen in building a gallows to hang the sumbitch from before the first commercial break. But it wasn’t Courtroom Six, and she found herself, oddly, thinking that the sumbitch actually had a case on the technicalities of the thing. Awkward, but there it was.

“I… uh…” she stammered, “for the motion.”

“You’re finding in favor?” Hardwether said.

“Uh-huh. Yes.”

Justice Santamaria let out an exhalation that would have billowed the sails of a four-masted schooner. He tossed his pencil onto the conference table with disgust. Paige gave Pepper a look of bemused curiosity.

“It’s just that I thought the South Dakota Supreme Court’s decision in Mortimer v. Great Lakes Suction seemed to… uh, speak to the validity of Swayle’s argument,” Pepper said.

Silence.

“Well,” she added, “it is a bitch, but that’s kind of where I came down.”

Justice Santamaria muttered something that sounded to Pepper like “Jesus wept.” He let out another majestic sigh, leaned back, looked at the ceiling, and rolled his eyes.

Pepper said, “Justice Santamaria, do you have something to say to me? Or are you waiting for one of your clerks to come put drops in your eyes?”

There was a general intake of breath around the table. Santamaria’s head turned toward Pepper like a tank turret swiveling to fire. Before he could get off a round, Chief Justice Hardwether, suppressing a smile, said, “In that case, Justice Cartwright, will you write for the majority?”

Pepper froze. “You want me to write the opinion?”

“If you would.”

“Uh, okay. I mean, yes.”

“Silvio,” Hardwether said, “I assume you’ll handle the dissent.”

Silvio snorted assent.

After the conference, Paige stopped by Pepper’s chambers. “Well,” she said, “you certainly don’t hold back.”

“I shouldn’t have popped off like that. But I couldn’t take any more of that high dudgeon crap from him. His eyeballs were going like tumblers in a Vegas slot machine. And I’m a little tired of him yammering off to the nearest passing reporter about what a featherweight I am.”

“Oh, he’s a big boy. It’s not him I’m worried about,” Paige said.

“All right,” Pepper said. “Let’s have it. You think I voted wrong?”

Paige had voted against Swayle. “It’s not that. But I had the feeling back there that you were voting against your instincts.”

“It’s not about instincts, is it?” Pepper said. “It’s about the law. Right?”

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

Paige stood to go. “Sandy O’Connor kept a needlepoint cushion in her chambers. It said, ‘Maybe in error. Never in doubt.’ ” She smiled. “I look forward to reading your opinion. Good luck with it.”

MR. PRESIDENT. We’ve just intercepted a coded signal from Chinese Naval Command Shanghai.”

“Go ahead, Admiral.”

“The Wung Fu, their fast frigate-it’s armed with specials. Nuclear-tipped missiles.”

The President’s face darkened. “Goddammit. They lied. Their premier looked me straight in the face. And lied.” He slammed his fist on the Situation Room table.

The Secretary of State said, “Sir, we don’t know that for an absolute fact. All we know for sure is that when you met with him, Li Pu Fang was making moves to consolidate his power base with Xiang Zhu.”

“Goddammit, Brad-he lied. What the hell kind of proof do you need? A mushroom cloud over San Francisco?”

The room fell silent. All eyes turned to the President.

“All right,” said the President. “No more Mr. Nice Guy. Send in the Nimitz. Maybe a carrier battle group will get their attention.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense exchanged fraught glances.

“Sir,” said the Admiral, “they’ll take that as a provocation.”

“You having a hard time with the English language today, sailor? I gave you an order.”

“Aye, sir,” the Chairman replied. He nodded to his chief of operations and said gravely, “You heard the President. Send in the Nimitz.”

The Secretary of State said, “Sir, I beg you. This could lead to-global annihilation.”

“You had your chance, Brad. I’m sorry. Better pull your people out of Beijing.”

“But-there’s no time!”

“Then they’ll have themselves a ringside seat at the barbecue. Sorry, Brad, but this is my call.”

“One more day, Mr. President. Give us just one more day.”

The President shook his head. “I told those little yellow bastards not to-”

“Cut.”

President Mitchell Lovestorm turned to the director. “What’s the matter? I thought we were doing fine.”

The director, a man named Jerry, said, “It’s going great, Senator. Terrific. The line is ‘I told those bastards,’ not ‘I told those little yellow bastards.’ Okay? Let’s take it from-”

Dexter said, “I think it’s better my way. Tougher…”

“You could be right,” Jerry said. “But let’s trust the material.”

“That’s how they talk in Washington. Behind closed doors, anyway. Trust me. I’ve been in the room.”

Jerry nodded. “I don’t doubt it. But-”

“We want this to be realistic, right?”

“Absolutely. But let’s trust the script. Okay? All set…”

“I mean,” Dexter persisted, “they’re threatening the United States with nuclear weapons. You think in the Situation Room at the White House everyone’s going to stop and go, ‘Oh, gosh, oh, dear me,’ because the President, in a moment of-justifiable-stress, calls them a name? I don’t think so.”

Jerry glanced over at Buddy, who was perched in his producer’s chair, looking as though he were conducting an silent one-man Socratic dialogue on the ethics of racist epithets.

“Samsung is a sponsor,” Buddy said softy. “ Toyota is a sponsor. Will they be comfortable with ‘little yellow bastards’? I’m guessing not. I could be wrong.”

“Those are Korean and Japanese,” Dexter said. “They hate the Chinese. Are you kidding? They’ll lap it up.”

“It’s tempting, but let’s save it for season two.”

The makeup lady dabbed at Dexter’s forehead. He said poutingly, “I thought the whole idea was to be edgy.”

“Edgy? You’ve just ordered in the Nimitz. Three pages from now, you’re going to send a B-2 bomber over Shanghai, giving one point three billion little yellow bastards a case of the shits. I call that edgy. So, we good to go? I’d love to wrap the scene where you tell the Speaker of the House to fuck off before we break for lunch.”

“All right. Where do we-what’s the line?”

The script assistant said mechanically, “ ‘I told those bastards not to screw around. Now they are going to get a taste of their own cooking, and it will make hot and sour soup taste like Cream of Wheat.’ ”

“Okay, everyone. Places. Scene six, take four. Action…”

Dexter managed to get to the end of the scene without further denigrating one-seventh of the human race. He was doing better than credible work as President Mitchell Lovestorm, especially for a nonprofessional actor. Buddy’s casting instincts had not failed him: a senator who yearns to be president brings verisimilitude to the role.

Buddy had been screening the first three episodes of POTUS for the media, and indications were favorable. They were amused by its camp aspect. In the opening episode, Mitchell Lovestorm-at the time, vice president-is reluctantly thrust into history’s spotlight when the President is accidentally killed by a foul ball during opening day. His wife, Consuela “Connie” Lovestorm, played by the steamy Ramona Alvilar, is a panther in pantsuit who will stop at nothing to advance her husband’s fortunes, but who is unable to deny-much less control-her ardor for National Security adviser Milton Swan. Icy blue-eyed Gore Peckermann of the TV show St. Paul Trauma brought a cool ambivalence to his role as the former Navy SEAL turned National Security adviser, who must balance his loyalty to President Lovestorm and the country with his burning desire to throw the First Lady over his desk and brief her until dawn.