Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

Cass said, “Sure, but do you really want an item appearing on Page Six of the Post the day after tomorrow about how Latex Ladies Three was charged to the hotel bill of a certain senator?”

“Good thinking, Devine. You’re a good handler.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. “Want to be part of my brain trust?”

“I don’t know.” Cass kissed him back. “What’s in it for me?”

“Expensive French Champagne? We’ll start you off in the secretarial pool. Can you type?”

Successful, busy men are by nature impatient, and though Frank Cohane found it pleasant enough to listen to Bucky Trumble go on and on about how much the president appreciated his efforts in recruiting more big-donor Owls to the party, he was thinking: Can we move along to the part where I get a “significant” ambassadorship?

Instead, Bucky cleared his throat and said, “Frank, I need to speak with you about something. On a discreet basis.”

“Okay.”

“It concerns Cassandra Devine.”

Frank’s stomach muscles contracted. “Yeah?”

Bucky cleared his throat again. “I believe you two are…”

“Related. Yeah. She’s my daughter.”

“Right.” Awkward silence. “That was our information as well.”

“We’re not in touch. It’s been many years.”

“I guess that would account for your not having brought it up.”

“Bring what up? I said, I haven’t talked to her in-hell, this century.”

Another silence. “What I’m about to tell you is highly sensitive information.”

“We keep secrets here, too, Bucky.”

“You’re aware she was arrested and charged with a very serious crime.”

“It was on the cover of Time, and she’s, ah, my daughter, so-yeah.”

“The government-that is, the attorney general-decided not to pursue the charges, on the strictly legal grounds that successfully prosecuting her would in all likelihood prove difficult.”

“Uh-huh.” Where was this going?

“So she walked out of jail a free woman. It only then came to our attention-that is, the president’s and mine-that she was the daughter of one of our most valued donors.”

“I don’t know how many ways to say it, Buck. We haven’t seen each other in-”

“That’s not really the issue.” Pregnant pause. “ Is it, Frank?”

“It is as far as I’m concerned.”

“Let me tell you how we see it. If I may?”

“Shoot.”

“Let me state clearly and absolutely that the White House did not influence the decision of the attorney general. But the AG is a cabinet officer in this administration. So you have a situation where as far as the media would view it…the government decided not to prosecute the daughter of a major party donor.”

“I didn’t ask you for any favors for her.”

“No, you didn’t. You absolutely didn’t. And the president and I appreciate that. We do. Still and all, Frank, it might have been helpful if you’d given us a little, you know, heads-up that this radioactive young lady was-your daughter.”

It had been a long time since anyone had criticized Frank Cohane, even mildly. (Except his wife, who exercised high, middle, and low rights of spousal criticism.) He was tempted to tell Bucky Trumble that if he felt that way, he could return Frank’s half-million-dollar donation.

But people, even very successful ones, tend not to speak that way to someone who sits at the right hand of the president of the United States, a position that for all its many faults still packs a nasty punch. Especially when they’ve told their wives that they’re about to be appointed to the Court of St. James’s and they’ll be presenting their credentials to the queen of England. And probably staying over at Buckingham Palace for dinner.

“I’m…” Frank reached for the word. What was the word, anyway? “ Sorry if…I’ve been busy as hell here. We’re launching a new software, and I’ve been focused 24/7 on…”

Bucky let him prattle on a bit and then said, “I understand. But sooner or later the media are going to make the connection. So the question really is, where do we go from here?”

The sentence hovered between the two men like a malignant hummingbird. Frank saw the “significant” ambassadorship he wasn’t even sure he wanted suddenly going pfffut . Which, human nature being what it is, suddenly made him crave it above all earthly things. He saw himself explaining to Lisa that she would not, in fact, be dining with the queen and Prince Philip.

Then Bucky said, “I have some thoughts. May I share them with you?”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “Sure.”

“We were thinking that if you brought the connection to the media’s attention, in such a way as to demonstrate that you’re opposed to what she stands for and did…that that might solve the immediate problem.”

The third long silence of their conversation settled in.

“In other words, you want me to publicly denounce my daughter?”

“‘Denounce’ is a loaded term. Let’s say distance . As long as you make it clear that you don’t approve of what she did, and clarify that you haven’t even been on speaking terms for-since the last century. I think that would do it.”

A roar of sea lions suddenly broke in through Frank’s open window and into Frank’s speakerphone.

“What in the name of God was that?” Bucky said.

“Sea lions. They probably saw a great white.”

“Where were we?”

“You want me to distance myself from my daughter.”

“I’d sure rather that than us have to distance ourselves from you. The president values you. I can’t emphasize that enough. He talks about you all the time. I’ve gotta go. Will you think about it and get back to me one way or the other? And Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s not put any of this in e-mail, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, there is one other thing you could do. I know it would mean a great deal to the president.…”

Gideon Payne was of course delighted to receive an invitation to the White House for a one-on-one with the president, but he was suspicious.

Bucky Trumble had told him over the phone that the president desired “to get the benefit of your wise counsel and maybe even a private prayer session over this Transitioning business.” Prayer session? My, my, my, as Gideon was wont to say, how the wicked do lie.

Gideon did not trust Mr. Buckminster Trumble, and he did not like President Riley Peacham. The occasion of his last visit to the Oval Office had been an attempt to get the president to intercede personally on behalf of Mrs. Delbianco, his latest Lazarus. “Lazarus” was Gideon’s private term for hopeless coma cases who were about to be unplugged from life support. They were a most lucrative segment of SPERM’s fund-raising. And made for the most poignant photo ops.

The meeting had gone…“uncomfortably” would be the best word. President Peacham squirmed and frowned and fidgeted throughout Gideon’s rather inspired monologue about the need to keep poor Mrs. Delbianco alive. Never mind that the woman was in her seventeenth comatose year and had been pronounced brain-dead and permanently vegetative by several dozen specialists; or that twenty-three judges had approved the family’s request to remove life support. Life is life, the most precious gift of the Almighty, even if it just, well, lies there growing fingernails.

What made the case worthy of presidential intercession-where Gideon was concerned-was the fact that a hospice worker reported seeing a recurring rash on Mrs. Delbianco’s stomach in the shape of the Virgin Mary. When a hospice worker informs a local newspaper that a rash in the shape of the Madonna is visible on the stomach of a woman about to be unplugged from life support, it is a certain thing that the hospice worker will snap a photo of it and sell it to the tabloids for almost as much as a picture of a newborn celebrity baby. And that other newspapers will reprint it and that national attention will follow. And with it, Gideon Payne.