Supreme Courtship

CHAPTER 28

VANDERDAMP NARROWLY WINS REELECTION; POTENTIAL CHAOS OVER TERM-LIMIT AMENDMENT; SUPREME COURT INTERVENTION SEEN AS ‘INEVITABLE’

President-unelect (as he was being rudely called in quarters of the blogosphere) Dexter Mitchell surveyed his options.

The important thing, he knew, was Do not concede defeat. As Winston Churchill had said, “Never, never, ever give in.” Now that he had a mantra, he needed a strategy. Bussie Scrump said it was vital to keep his face out there in public, so Dexter, flailing, was trotted out for a press conference the day after the election. Adamant though he might be that he was the legitimate heir to the presidency, he decided not to start naming his new cabinet quite yet. Anyway, the press was interested in other aspects.

“Senator, are you planning to sue?”

Good question. But-whom, exactly?

“No. I mean… we’re not… we’re examining all aspects of it. We’re all… Look, everyone’s doing their best… it’s a confusing situation. Yes. Yes. But I’ve-”

“Senator, is it true that you’ve hired Blyster Forkmorgan?”

“No, no. No. Well, we’ve… there have been discussions but no-”

“Reuters reported ten minutes ago that you’ve hired him to fight your case.”

“My case doesn’t need fighting. Look, it’s quite clear that President Vanderdamp is constitutionally prohibited from taking office next January. I don’t need Mr. Forkmorgan to make that point.”

“Then why have you hired him?”

“That’s as far as I’ll characterize it for the time being. Look, he’s an authority on this sort of… a distinguished legal mind. Yes. Very distinguished. Why wouldn’t I want to consult with him?”

Why not indeed? Blyster Forkmorgan, Esquire, was to the Washington legal establishment what the tiger shark is to the aquatic kingdom. The mere announcement by a corporation that it had hired (the ironically nicknamed) “Bliss” Forkmorgan was often enough to scare off a litigant, or even the Justice Department. He’d clerked at the Supreme Court (for Earl Warren), been state prosecutor, U.S. Attorney, U.S. Solicitor General, and Attorney General. In recent decades, he had been in hyper-lucrative private practice, occasionally lured forth to act as special prosecutor, an announcement generally made to the rumble of kettledrums. Over the years he had brought down: a vice president, twelve cabinet members, two governors, eighteen congressmen, four senators, fourteen Mafia dons, and twenty-eight CEOs. Federal penitentiaries teemed with his successes. He’d argued sixty-six cases before the Supreme Court and won fifty-four of them. He was the Man to See, if you could afford the $2,500 per hour fee.

If Dexter’s answers at the press conference were ambiguous, so, at this point, was everything. Even the Secret Service was at a loss whether to withdraw Dexter’s protection, now that he had, technically, lost the election. President Vanderdamp quietly and graciously gave orders for it to be continued until the situation clarified. To that end, Hayden Cork picked up the phone the moment Ohio put its favorite son over the top on Election Night and, his voice barely above a croak, whispered, “Mr. Clenndennynn, please.” Graydon, ensconced aboard the private 757 of the emir of Wasabia, had already heard the news and had instructed the pilot to turn around and fly back to the U.S.

His arrival at the White House was impossible to keep secret. It triggered a thousand camera shutters. A virtual computer game of questionable taste appeared on the Internet casting Clenndennynn (“White Knight”) and Blyster Forkmorgan (“Dark Knight”) in “Supreme Conflict.” The White House press secretary calmly noted that Mr. Clenndennynn was a “trusted adviser” and that it was “perfectly natural” that he should “provide counsel at this”-she groped for the blandest possible word-“juncture.” “Crisis” might have been more apt, technically. The country was in an uproar. The stock market had plunged nearly 2,000 points in three days, forcing a trading halt. When it reopened the next day, the bell was rung by the U.S. Vice President, a neutral enough entity, who gave a cheery little speech about “continuity,” whereupon the market plunged another 700 points. Alarmingly, military blogs hinted that “various elements in the Pentagon” were “unhappy” about the developments.

“Hell of a mess, Donald,” Graydon said, looking pale and hunched. He uncharacteristically waved away the offer of a martini. “Hell of a mess.” He slumped into the fauteuil, looking for the first time-old.

“I wasn’t trying to win,” the President said defensively, holding his untouched and warming beer. “But there’s no point wailing and gnashing our teeth and rending the garments. The question is where do we go from here?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Clenndennynn said. “We’re in uncharted waters. You have a predilection for steering us into them. How did you manage in the navy?”

“We had radar.”

“Well, it’s going to take more than radar. He’s hired Bliss Forkmorgan,” Clenndennynn said.

“Do we know that?”

“Bliss called me in the car ten minutes ago,” Clenndennynn said, wiping his brow.

“Oh. So it’s on.”

“Yes. It’s on. Battle stations, gentlemen.”

“I don’t want a battle,” the President moaned. “I just want to go home.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before, shouldn’t you have?” Graydon said irritably.

“Don’t hand me that. You were the one who kept pressing me to run.”

“And you did and now you’ve won. You did it for the principle of the thing. So now you can feel wonderful. Just don’t look out the window, because the country is on fire over your principle. Meanwhile, once again, it’s landed in my lap. Graydon Clenndennynn, presidential cleaner-upper. Every time you make a muck of things, I have to go forward to the cockpit and tell the pilot, ‘Never mind, turn around, back to Washington. President Vanderdamp has made another gigantic caca. For the principle.’ ”

“Oh? Oh? Well, at least I have principles. I apologize if I’m keeping the chairman of the Graydon Clenndennynn Influence Peddling Corporation-an offshore corporation, I might add-from making another squintillion dollars for-”

“Will you both, please, just… shut… up.”

The President of the United States and Graydon Clenndennynn fell instantly silent. They turned, stared at Hayden Cork, speaker of the harsh, imperative, unaccustomed syllables.

“I beg your pardon?” the President said.

“Sorry,” Hayden said. “But shall we move on, or are you two going to bellow at each like a pair of old water buffalo?”

“I think I will have that martini,” Clenndennynn said, mopping his forehead.

THE PROSPECT that Mitchell v. Vanderdamp or Vanderdamp v. Mitchell or The People v. The U.S. Constitution or whatever this judicial Frankenstein called itself was going to end up at the Court worked an eerie calm on the three hundred or so inhabitants of the marble palace.

A cloistral hush descended on the place. No one spoke in the corridors. The cafeteria was a funeral parlor. Even passersby on the sidewalk outside the building whispered, shot nervous sideways glances, and quickened their steps. Every hour brought another television satellite truck. Gradually, the building took on the look of an ancient, marmoreal Ground Zero-a temple in which furious gods were preparing to vie. Such was the atmosphere one afternoon when Pepper answered her cell phone, the very private one whose number was known only to a handful.

“Justice Cartwright?”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, immediately annoying Pepper that it should be coming over this phone.

“Who is this?”

“Joe Lodato, ma’am. FBI. We met-that day, in your office? We spoke just as I was leaving?”

“How did you get this number?”

Soft chuckle. Was he laughing? Pepper felt her face reddening.

“No disrespect, ma’am. It’s just a funny question to ask the FBI.”

“What do you want?”

“I was wondering if I might see you. Off premises.”

“Is this a professional matter?”

Another chuckle. “Ma’am, I may not be the smartest person at the Bureau, but I’m not stupid enough to hit on a Supreme Court justice.”

“Why off campus?”

“This must be a tense time at the Court. Who needs a knuckle-dragger prowling the halls, right? There’s a place on Capitol Hill called the Pork Barrel, it’s…”

“I know it.”

THEY SAT IN A BACK BOOTH and ordered coffee.

“I know this is sensitive for you,” he began apologetically.

“Agent Lodato,” Pepper said. “I can handle it. Now you’ve got me in a lobbyist bar at four o’clock on a school day. What’s up?”

Agent Lodato produced a piece of paper that she immediately recognized as a page from her Swayle opinion, annotated.

Agent Lodato pointed to a spot on the page. Pepper saw the words-words that she herself had typed in block letters: “KISS MY ASS.”

She froze. “No,” she said. “No. Hold on. Something’s wrong here. I deleted that.”

Agent Lodato pointed to the lower right-hand of the page. “Do you recognize those initials and that handwriting?”

Pepper looked. “IH.” Ishiguro Haro. The date was next to it.

“I’m told he initials every document he reads and dates it.”

“I don’t understand this,” Pepper said. “I did write that, but I deleted it.” Her mind raced. “He’d sent me his comments on my Peester opinion. I thought they were a little patronizing and I got a little frosted and… I typed this. But then I went to the gym to cool off and came back and I deleted ‘KISS MY ASS’ and typed in…”

Agent Lodato was nodding metronomically.

“… and typed in something like, okay, thank you, got it, good point, okay, fair enough, and…” Pepper’s voice trailed off. She looked at Lodato. “Aw, shit.”

“Happens all the time,” Agent Lodato shrugged. “You think you’re closing a file. Instead you’re hitting SEND and the next thing you know… I could tell you stories.”

Pepper’s heart was pounding. “How did you get this?”

“Ma’am,” he smiled. “I’m an FBI agent. It’s what I do.”

“But you can’t just… It’s the Supreme Court.”

“Off the record, Justice Haro appears not to be too popular among his own clerks.”

“Well, okay,” Pepper said, “but what does this prove?”

Agent Lodato took another piece of paper from his inside pocket, unfolded that, and laid it out in front of Pepper. It looked like a cell phone bill. One line had been yellow highlighted.

“This is a cell phone bill for someone named Aurora Fonacier,” he said. “This number here that’s highlighted, that’s a cell phone belonging to a reporter at the Washington Times newspaper-the one who wrote the unsigned Swayle item in the paper. The article wasn’t bylined so as to protect him from a subpoena, though I understand the AG is considering subpoenaing the editor and publisher and chairman of the board. See the date of this call? That’s the day after Justice Haro read and initialed your ‘kiss my’… rear-end comment note.”

“Who’s Aurora Fonacier?”

“Justice Haro’s housekeeper.”

Pepper stared.

“Filipino lady. Very nice person, from what I gather. Not a huge English speaker. Quiet worker. So you have to wonder what she’s doing engaging in a twenty-two-minute phone call with a Supreme Court reporter for the Washington Times.”

Pepper slumped into the hard wooden back of the booth. After a moment or two she said, “What are you going to do with this?”

“Well, ma’am, I thought I’d ask you that.”

“Who knows about this?”

“As of this moment, you and I.”

“Aren’t you required to share this?”

Agent Lodato smiled. “Yes, ma’am. However, you being a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, I thought it would be permissible to exercise initiative. They like it when we do that. Up to a point. I appreciate that it comes at what seems to be shaping up as a challenging time for everyone at the Court. So,” he slid the two pieces of paper toward Pepper, “that being the case, I thought I’d present this to Courtroom Six.” He stood. “I always liked the way Judge Cartwright handled things. To be honest, I’m not so sure about Justice Cartwright, especially after that Swayle vote…” He let out a little whistle of amazement. “But I thought I’d take a chance on her. Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

IF BLYSTER FORKMORGAN had imagined that he would be contending against the other gods of the bar in the rarified atmosphere at the summits of Olympus, he now found himself instead tramping about hip-deep in sheep turd and mud at its base. It was not exactly what Dexter Mitchell’s plangent phone call to him at four a.m. on Election Night had promised.

His client sat across from him, crossing and uncrossing his legs, nervous, sweating, pallid.

“I never explicitly told her,” Dexter jibbered, “at least I’m virtually sure I never… in so many words… Hell, I can’t remember everything I said to everyone… every promise made to every group…”

Forkmorgan stared through lidded eyes, a falcon watching a mole scrabbling across a field below.

He poured ice water into a cut crystal glass and handed it to Dexter, who took it and drank, as if more out of obedience than thirst.

“Campaigns,” Forkmorgan ventured soothingly, “are promiserich environments. The relevant question here is-did you in fact tell Ms. Alvilar that you were going to leave your wife and marry her?”

“No. No, no. No. Well… aack.” Dexter sighed. “Maybe… I don’t… in the middle of… I… Look, you say things in the middle of… It just comes… out… It doesn’t necessarily mean anything…”

To recap, then: you told your TV wife, probably during sexual intercourse in the midst of a presidential campaign, that you would divorce your actual wife in order to marry her and make her First Lady of the United States.

“Well,” Forkmorgan said, “these things happen.”

“Yes. Yes, they do. Yes,” Dexter said. “She’s, of course, Latina…”

Forkmorgan raised one eyebrow questioningly.

“Emotionally they’re, you know, all over the place. Voluble.”

Forkmorgan nodded. “They lack our Anglo-Saxon sense of reticence and decorum?”

Dexter frowned. “Something like that,” he said uncertainly. “I explained to her, I said, ‘Look, Ramona, for God’s sake… now is not the time to worry about that. Let’s take it step by step, okay?’ What am I supposed to do-announce in the middle of a Supreme Court case that I’m tossing Terry over the side?”

“And how did she respond to that argument?”

“By going totally fucking bat-shit. By threatening to go public.” Dexter shook his head at the iniquity of it all. “That’s when she told me she had me on tape.”

Blyster Forkmorgan’s eyes widened. “Does she have you on tape?”

“I don’t know,” Dexter said. “I was in the middle of a campaign, for God’s sake.”

“Yes,” Forkmorgan said, “I can see your mind might have been on… other things. Well, let’s ascertain whether such a tape exists.” He made a note on a pad. “Now, as to your wife. How do things stand with her at this point?”

Dexter sighed manfully once more at the unjustness of female wiles. “Terry? Well, now she’s gone bat-shit. On the other hand, she’s not some jalapeño like Ramona. She’s bat-shit, but logical. She understands that there’s no point in grabbing the wheel of this bus and driving it off the cliff.”

“Have you told her that you are not going to divorce her in order to marry Ms. Alvilar?”

“In so many words.”

“Tell me the actual words you used.”

“I told her, ‘Don’t worry about it. We need to stick together here. Team Mitchell. Team Mitchell.’”

Forkmorgan nodded. “And did she give you reason to understand that she is in fact on Team Mitchell?”

Dexter shrugged. “Well, she was running kind of hot when we last spoke. But she wants to be First Lady, so she’s not likely to do anything to screw that up.”

“No,” Forkmorgan said. “That would appear to be more on Ms. Alvilar’s agenda.”

“I was thinking,” Dexter said, sounding suddenly the politician, “we could offer Ramona a nice ambassadorship. Somewhere warm, Spanish-speaking. She’d be a hero down there. A queen. The Hispanics loved it when she disagreed with me about mining the border…”

Forkmorgan shook his head. “No, I think we’ve made enough promises to Ms. Alvilar for the time being. Not to mention it would be illegal.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it was a perfect solution,” Dexter sniffed.