Christopher Buckley - Supreme Courtship

“There’s a problem,” Pepper said.

“For God’s sake, Justice. What problem?”

“You’re construing too narrowly.”

“Pepper-I’m the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court!”

“Be that as it may, sir, duty to care runs both ways. See Farquar v. Simpson. And anyway, as a simple matter of constitutional law, the Chief Justice is most appropriately regarded as primus inter pares. [24]So,” Pepper said brightly, “duty to care clearly obtains here. We’re coworkers.”

The Chief Justice’s head sagged. “Could you just please… go?”

“All right,” Pepper said, “okay. But you’re going about this all wrong.”

“We’ve been through all that, Justice.”

“I’m talking about the knot. You call that a hangman’s knot?”

“I… Pepper…”

“I know how to tie one, if you want. I was taught how when I was eight. By an actual hangman. Friend of my granddaddy’s.”

Hardwether stared. “All right,” he grumbled. “Jesus. Whatever.”

Pepper went over and took off her shoes.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Trying not to scuff the table. Not that you cared. Look at those marks.”

“Would you just proceed, please?”

“No need to get aggervated,” Pepper said. She took the rope off his neck. “Where’d you get this? Looks like clothesline…”

Chief Justice Hardwether groaned. “If you’d please just tie the knot.”

“All right. See, you take a length so, make your loop, then double it back-”

“I don’t need to learn how. I’m not going to be doing this a second time.”

“Didn’t they teach this in Boy Scouts? Or were you getting your merit badge in library science or some wimpy thing? There…” She handed it to him, a perfect hangman’s knot. “You better put it on yourself,” she said. “Legal-wise.”

He put it around his neck.

“You’d think a judge would know how to make a hangman’s knot,” she said.

“I’m against capital punishment,” he said. “Perhaps you read any of my eight opinions?”

“I read ’em,” Pepper said. “Now, you want the knot against the side, there, not the back. How much you weigh?”

“What?”

“Do you want to do this right, or you want to strangle to death slowly with your tongue sticking out black and blue and-”

“One seventy-five,” Hardwether snapped.

“All right then,” Pepper said. “Hm.”

“What now?”

“We’d need at least a four-foot drop for a good clean snap.”

“I’ll work with what we have. Thank you, Justice.”

“It’s your funeral,” Pepper shrugged, climbing down off the polished table. “Only now,” she added pensively, “we got a definite problem.”

“What?” the CJ said.

“Now I am an accessory. You die, I go to jail. That’s not a satisfactory outcome from my point of view.”

“For God’s sake,” the Chief Justice moaned.

“Tell you what,” Pepper said. “Why don’t you come down off there. We’ll go over to the library, rustle us up a couple of real sharp clerks, see if maybe we can’t find a loophole. If there is, then off you go and we’re done.”

Chief Justice Hardwether stepped forward as he raised his finger to gesture. As he did, his shoe slipped on the polished surface of the conference table. He pitched forward, the rope pulling taut against his throat. Pepper lunged forward as he crashed to the floor in a heap. He looked up at Pepper with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and betrayal, holding his abraded neck where the rope had been.

“Slipknot,” she said half apologetically. “Escape clause. Hangman taught me that, too.”

Hardwether made a hoarse sound.

“You want to go get some coffee or something? Valium? Crisis counseling? I believe it’s covered under our health plan.”

“A drink,” the Chief Justice croaked.

THEY WALKED TO THE PORK BARREL, a bar on Capitol Hill frequented by congressional staffers, low-end lobbyists, and Vietnam veteran bikers. Hardwether ordered a double Scotch; Pepper tequila.

“So,” she said when the drink came. “Seen any good movies lately?”

He stared glumly at the table.

“What was that all about?” she said.

“I apologize,” Hardwether said hoarsely. “Can we just leave it at that? I haven’t been thinking very clearly.”

“Sure. But the conference room?”

“The ceiling in my office was too high.”

“Oh. Would have made for one heck of a headline.”

“Undoubtedly.”

They sat in silence.

“Is it that bad?” Pepper said.

“I just tried to kill myself,” he said. “Res ipsa loquitur.” [25]

“The wife thing?”

He stared into his drink. “The life thing. You won’t mention this to anyone, will you?”

“I’m not the Court leaker.”

“No, that’s right. Oh, what a… mess.”

Pepper said, “Reason I went to see you in the first place was Crispus gave me a whuppin’ today in the cafeteria about feeling sorry for myself. I could recycle his lecture if you want.”

“It’s not self-pity. It’s an admission of failure. Two different things entirely.”

“We back on oral argument?”

“No.” He rubbed the livid red line around his neck.

“You might consider a turtleneck tomorrow,” Pepper said. “Or one of them high Edwardian collars. You’d look good in those. You’ve already got that stuffy owl sort of look.”

“All I ever wanted to be was this,” he said. “And now I’m in a bar, with abrasions around my neck. There’s a Yiddish proverb. Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans. ’Nother round?”

“Do you really need more depressants? Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive you home.”

The Chief Justice was now living not in a multimillion- dollar mansion in McLean but in a nice-but-nothing-fancy apartment building in Kalorama, which means “beautiful view” in Greek, a name dreamt up by a nineteenth-century Washington developer.

Pepper pulled up in front of his apartment building. The Chief Justice stared vacantly through the windshield, making no move for the door handle. They sat in silence.

Pepper said, “You don’t want to be alone tonight. Do you?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“You got a couch?”

“I think so. Yes. I have a couch.”

“Okay then,” she said, “I’ll take the bed.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

It was a light day for Dexter on the set of POTUS. He had only a short scene in which the CIA would reveal that National Security Director Milton Swan had been poisoned by radioactive borscht at a Kremlin state banquet. Dexter hadn’t convinced Buddy or Jerry to add the subplot about Swan being a Russian double agent.

A production assistant came to his dressing room with the word that his wife, Terry, was on the phone and that it was “extremely urgent.” (Personal cell phones had to be turned off on the set, a strict rule.)

“Dexter,” Terry said, “something very strange has happened.”

Dexter’s stomach tightened.

“Oh?” he said, trying to sound casual while looking over his lines. “But Milton was like a son to me! At least until he started porking the First Lady.” Dexter made a mental note to ask Jerry if “porking” was presidential. These writers…

Terry said, “I gave Lee Tucker from the bank the go-ahead to wire the down payment to the broker. He called me back and said, quote, ‘There’s not enough in the account. Not nearly enough.’ Do you know anything about this?”

Dexter took a deep breath. “I was going to call you.”

A frosty silence befell. “About what, Dexter?”

“I had to make this other payment,” Dexter said.