Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“Our leader,” Cass said. “He makes you want to take the bullet for him.”

“Never mind him. We got some spinning to do.”

Gideon carried his own bully pulpit wherever he went. In the days following the arrest of Arthur Clumm, he was ubiquitous, on every TV show, fulminating and demanding that the attorney general investigate “all links between Arthur Clumm and Cassandra Devine’s diabolical death factory.”

Watching this explosion of spittle, Terry said to Cass, mentor to student, “You caught the operative word in there, right?”

“‘Diabolical’?”

“No. ‘ All.’ Not just one link. All links. Subtle, in a diabolical sort of way.”

Arthur Clumm’s salamandrine visage was on every front page and TV show. Here was Arthur, in jailhouse orange jumpsuit and manacles, being transferred from Budding Grove jail to a more secure facility. Here was Arthur again, arriving at the Cunch County Courthouse, wearing a flak jacket and a-what’s this?-blanket over his head. “What’s the blanket for?” a reporter asked. “To confuse snipers,” replied a sheriff’s deputy.

At his arraignment, Arthur, in the best tradition of American criminality, pleaded “not guilty.” It transpired that during his interrogation, he had called CASSANDRA “my personal goddess and inspiration.” It was further revealed that Arthur possessed an autographed photo of Cass, with the inscription “Keep up the good work.” This was not good news for the Cass camp.

This grim tiding was revealed to her by way of a phone call from a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch . She told the reporter the truth-namely, that she received many requests for photos and autographs from followers of her blog.

The problem was, the reporter informed Cass, that the postmark on the envelope containing the autographed photo was dated in the middle of the six-month period during which Arthur had taken it on himself to euthanize half the population of the Budding Grove nursing home.

“Oh shit,” Cass said. She immediately added, “That was off the record.”

The reporter said he wouldn’t be able to quote her exactly, as the Dispatch was a family paper, but that he would have to quote her as uttering an expletive.

She told Terry about the call.

“‘Personal goddess’?” he said. “Uch.”

“I feel like Transitioning myself.”

“Why so glum?” Terry said. “I thought women liked being on pedestals.”

“I’m dead meat,” Cass said.

“Cass, you didn’t…know this creep?”

“Of course not. I get thousands of requests for autographed photos.”

“Why did you write, ‘Keep up the good work’?”

“I have no idea. I don’t remember every autograph, for God’s sake. He probably wrote that he was a nurse or-I don’t know . You don’t think I’d encourage a freelance mass murderer?”

“You weren’t, like, urging him to put people to sleep.”

“No.”

“Well,” Terry said, “that’s a relief. Good to know that one of my senior vice presidents isn’t moonlighting advising serial murderers.”

“Hilarious,” Cass said. “ So hilarious.”

Not long afterward, two FBI agents appeared in the reception room of Tucker Strategic Communications.

“Your friends are back,” Terry alerted Cass by intercom. “It’s always nice to have a couple of G-men in the waiting room. It really impresses clients. Especially the big corporate ones.”

“Terry, I’m sorry about this. But-”

“Just don’t tell them anything until I get Allen. It’s always good to talk to Allen. He’s a great guy, and he only charges seven hundred an hour. Which, under the circumstances, is going to come out of your next paycheck instead of mine.”

Allen Snyder arrived and conducted a $700 discussion with the FBI agents over the finer points of something called Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Cass and Terry, listening in, gathered that it had to do with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and “probable cause”-in this instance for searching the hard drives of Cass’s computers. Allen eloquently maintained that they had no such probable cause. The agents argued that they did, and if it came to that, they would be more than happy to return with a search warrant.

“May I have a word with my client?” he said. The FBI men assented in the laconic way of their ilk.

Allen, Cass, and Terry huddled in another office.

“Is there anything on the computer?” Allen asked.

“Like what?” Cass said. “Coded messages to the Death Angel of Budding Grove telling him to exterminate a whole nursing home?”

“I meant, is there anything on the computers that you wouldn’t want them to see? Personal matters.…”

“I-I mean-I keep a diary .”

Allen nodded gravely. “A diary.”

“It’s password protected. But the FBI will probably figure out a way through it.”

“Is there anything in the diary that could cause you a problem?”

“You mean like sex stuff?”

Allen blushed.

“I’d just as soon not have the FBI poring over my diary,” Cass said, flustered. “There are no lesbian fantasies or numbers of private banking accounts in the Cayman Islands or plots to assassinate the president or Osama bin Laden’s private cell phone number.…?But it’s a diary. I tell it things. That’s what you do with a diary.”

Terry groaned.

“All right,” Allen said in calming tones. “I’m going to insist that they have no probable cause. At the same time, I don’t think we want headlines saying that we’re refusing to cooperate with an FBI investigation into”-he gave Terry a weary glance-“serial murders.”

When the agents and Allen had left, Terry said, “Diary?”

“So?”

“It’s a company computer.”

“Oh, please. If you’re worried about the FBI finding incriminating material on my company computer, I’d worry more about the company-related stuff. Like your proposal to the government of North Korea about putting on that celebrity pro-am golf tournament in Pyongyang. Or our pitch to ExxonMobil for the ‘Adopt a Sea Otter’ plan. Or the media plan for the Mink Ranchers Association about how more people get rabies from minks than from rats. Or would you rather worry about my diary?”

Terry, color draining from his face, said. “I better call the IT people. We’ve got some deleting to do.”

“What about damage control?”

“Delete first, control damage later.”

The senator from the great state of Massachusetts called. He’d heard about the “personal goddess” comment and the “Keep up the good work.” He said, “Don’t worry. I’ve thought it all through. We’re going to be fine. You and Terry could spin your way out of a hurricane. By the way, I won’t be back in town for a while.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going on a listening tour. If I’m going to be a national candidate, I’ve got to get myself out there. I’ll check in from the road. Good luck!”

It had been a long day. Terry and Cass repaired that night to the Unnamed Source, a bar around the corner from the office. She told him about the call from Randy.

“A ‘listening tour’?” Terry snorted into his bourbon.

Cass said, “The first listening tour in history took place in France, in 1848. It was conducted by a man named Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. One of the leaders of the revolution of 1848. One day he saw a mob going by his window. He jumped up and said, ‘There go the people! I must follow them! I am their leader!’”

The TV over the bar showed Arthur Clumm, Nurse of the Year, making another fashion statement in bright orange with stainless steel wrist and ankle accessories.