Christopher Buckley - Supreme Courtship

“That’s right,” Pepper said, edgily.

“His show Jumpers. Can you describe it for us?”

“You could just look it up in TV Guide. Maybe one of the seventy-two people you have on staff could do it for you.”

“Seventy-six.”

“I stand corrected. Thank you.”

“My understanding is that it’s about people who throw themselves off bridges. He produces another called… G.O. About grotesquely obese people?”

“That’s right. He’s got another one in development,” Pepper said, “called Assholes. It’s about White House staffers.”

Graydon rose and said to Pepper, “Let’s go have a cup of something.” They left the faux senators and went and sat alone in a quiet lounge that reeked of long-ago cigar smoke and wood polish.

“You’re quite good,” Graydon said.

“Thank you,” Pepper said tightly.

“That’s why I was surprised to see you fall for that so easily.”

“Whatever.”

“Come now, Judge Cartwright. Let’s not start feeling sorry for ourselves. You’re playing in the big leagues now. This isn’t Courtroom Seven.”

“Six. Look, Mr. Clenndennynn-”

“Graydon.”

“Mr. Clenndennynn, I don’t see any point in acting like I’m some lion of the federal bench who’s spent the last decade writing erudite footnotes, sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. I’m just a-”

“A plain old girl from Plano. Yes, yes. But you have a point. You might as well be yourself. That’s presumably why the President asked you in the first place. Authenticity. The real America. Ah, the real America. That elusive thing…”

Pepper laughed.

“I amuse you?” Graydon asked.

“Not really. But I do get a kick out of the way you say presooomably. You’re a real aristo, aren’t you, Mr. Clenndennynn? Regular blue blood.”

“Yes,” Graydon smiled. “Very much so. So is Mr. Cork, though of a younger generation.”

“Corky?” Pepper said. “No, he’s not in your DNA league. He’s just another Ivy League needle-dick.” Pepper said, “Sorry. You went to…”

“Harvard.”

“I don’t think of you as a… that.”

“Generous of you.”

“Look, Mr. Cork made it clear as Evian water from the get-go what he thinks of me. I don’t owe him a damn thing.”

“Hayden Cork-Corky, as you call him in front of people who have been in public service longer than you’ve been alive-is the White House Chief of Staff. He has one goal in all of this. Serving the President. I wouldn’t make an enemy of him, just for the sake of satisfying your own ego. This can be a mean town, Judge. Very mean. You have no idea. You might just find yourself needing a friend or two. On the other hand,” the old man said airily, “you might just make it to the finish line. In which case, you won’t need any friends for the rest of your life. You’ll be home free.”

“You don’t sound exactly thrilled at the prospect.”

“May I speak frankly, Judge?”

“Why not?”

“I know this is a big moment in your life. But to me, it’s just another Thursday morning.”

Pepper stared at the old man, who returned her stare implacably.

“Ouch,” Pepper said. “But I appreciate the honesty.”

“Whether you make it concerns me only to the extent it affects the President.” Graydon crooked his head in the direction of the White House. “I happen to like him. I admire what’s he’s trying to do-against considerable odds. If you turn the hearings into some simulacrum of your television program, just to humiliate Mitchell and the others-which I don’t doubt you can since you are a clever girl-they won’t be able to retaliate directly if they sense that the country is with you. So they’ll take it out on him. They’re already trying to, with this idiotic Presidential Term Limit Amendment. The irony is he’s… I gather he’s let you in on the dirty little secret.”

Pepper said, “What secret?”

“Very good. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. That he’s not planning to run for reelection.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Graydon smiled. “Very good, Judge. But you can relax, because he told me that he told you. He doesn’t want to reveal it yet because the moment he does, he’s a lame duck. For the time being he needs to have people assume he will, in order to exercise what power remains to him. But Mitchell and his band of assassins can make the rest of his months in office a torment. You, meanwhile, will be safe in your new marble bunker. Impervious. It’s the ultimate job. No one can take it away from you,” he said benignly, “until you start wrapping your ears in tin foil.” His expression turned grave. “He’s handing you the keys to the kingdom, Judge Cartwright. Be grateful. We understand each other?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir?” Graydon smiled. “Well, well. I feel as though I’ve just been promoted.”

THE MURDER BOARD [5]RESUMED. Pepper kept her lip buttoned, her answers businesslike and polite. She rose to no bait. Hayden kept the questions judicial-where did she stand on original intent, judicial temperament, the role of a judge versus a legislator, prayer in school, racial profiling, should the Pledge of Allegiance contain the words “under God,” and naturally, abortion-the object, of course, being to say as little as possible in as many words as possible.

On a discreet signal from Graydon, Hayden turned to another page of his briefing tome and in a mild tone of voice said, “Judge Cartwright, your father was a Dallas police officer?”

Pepper stiffened slightly. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”

Hayden let it hang there a moment, and then said, “Before continuing on to another profession?”

Pepper relaxed. “Correct again, Senator.”

“He’s a minister, down in Texas.”

“First Sabbath Tabernacle of Plano. Giving witness to the Word, twenty-four seven, rain or shine, hell or high water, no sin too small, no crime too dire. Yeaaaah, Jesus!”

“Sorry?”

“It’s how he begins his Sunday broadcast.”

“Ah. Yes. Growing up in that environment must have affected your own religious views?”

“Certainly, sir. But as to that, I don’t really have any religious views.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, Senator, we all keep the Sabbath in our own way.”

“May I ask how you keep it?”

“In bed with a crossword puzzle, coffee, and a croissant.”

“I see.”

“I could leave out the croissant part at the hearings, if you want, if you think it sounds too French. Want me to substitute bagel? Or is that too Jewish? What about crumb cake? Crumb cake sounds American enough.”

Hayden and the other senators exchanged uneasy stares.

Hayden said, “Your lack of religious views, again, if I may, I don’t mean to… what I’m trying to get at is…”

“Let me help you out here, Senator. When I was nine years old I watched my momma get hit by lightning. Now, my daddy interpreted that as the Almighty’s punishment for playing golf on the Sabbath and built a whole church around it. I drew a different inference.”

Hayden said, “The inference being… I don’t mean to pry, but…”

“That God is a son of a bitch,” she said.

SHE SAID that?” the President said.

It was later the same day. He had just handed a wornout-looking Graydon Clenndennynn a double martini and had poured himself a frosty schooner of beer.

“Freely,” Graydon said. “Gleefully. She’s an atheist. Proud of it.”

“Oh, my,” said the President.

“From what I gather, it didn’t help that that the gaga father baptized her by holding her head underwater in front of thousands of people at that absurd church of his. Hayden did a very lawyerly job of drawing it out of her. Not that she held back, mind you. We spoke to her privately about de-emphasizing it at the hearings. But it’s an Achilles’ heel. If it comes up, Mitchell will chomp down on it like a terrier.”