Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

Terry waved over the bartender. “Would you turn that thing to ESPN?” The bartender went to find the remote control. Cass idly watched the “crawl” at the bottom of the screen, the distracting ticker tape of generally pointless news bulletins.

… SHARES OF ELDERHEAVEN CORP STOCK DOWN 8% IN WAKE OF BUDDING GROVE FACILITY DEATHS…

In the next instant, the screen switched to a Major League Baseball player who had gained seventy-five pounds in less than a year, all of it muscle. His lawyer, sitting next to him at a table, was staunchly averring that his client had never taken steroids and was pounding his fist on the table, complaining about the “unconscionably sloppy custody chain with these urine samples.”

“Merciful Jesus, ” Gideon Payne was saying over the phone. He had loosened his tie and with his free hand was waving off a minion who was approaching with a face of woe. “ How much of it do we own?…Thirty percent ?” Gideon’s eyes darted back and forth like beads in an abacus. “That’s minority ownership.…?I know it’s almost a third, Sidney, I can count…but it’s still… minority… We don’t…we don’t…We do ? Well, who in the name of all angels and archangels signed off on that dumb-ass scheme?…What is the Elderheaven Corporation doing administering the personnel division of a nursing home in Blooming… Budding, whatever Grove-”

“Reverend,” interrupted one of Gideon’s minions, “it’s that reporter from The New York Times again. He says-”

“Go. Away,” Gideon mouthed. “Now you look here, Sidney. You’re going to have to deal with this out of your office. I need space around me on this. A lot of space. Vast space. I want you to create a, a, desert around me. You’re the chief operating officer of Elderheaven Corporation. So assume the mantle of chief and start operating. As far as I am concerned, I wasn’t in the same room when this deal was signed with Budding Grove. I was not in the country . I was not on the planet . Not in the same solar system. ”

Gideon hung up, exhausted and in a molar-grinding fury. The minion was hovering.

“What do you want, Templeton?”

The minion Templeton presented Gideon with a list of the media calls that had come in following the revelation that Arthur Clumm, Death Angel, was technically on Gideon’s payroll.

The Financial Times…The New York Times … The Washington Post…USA Today… the Los Angeles Times…The Wall Street Journal …the Jerusalem Post. ..?The Jerusalem Post ? For God’s sake.…?

Gideon wiped his brow with a handkerchief, dismissed Templeton, and looked up at the ceiling and muttered, “You’re not working with me today, Lord.”

Cass and Terry had made a $100 bet, as they rushed back to the office from the Unnamed Source with renewed spring in their step, as to how long before Senator Randolph K. Jepperson called, pretending not to have heard the news about Gideon Payne’s one-third ownership of the Budding Grove-“Budding Grave” in the tabloid press-nursing facility; furthermore, to announce that he was abandoning his “listening tour” because there was no one out there really worth listening to and was ready to get back to sitting on the Transitioning commission. Cass bet that he would call in before noon the next day. Terry bet after noon. Randy’s call came at twelve-fifteen p.m., so they decided to spend the $100 on a good, splurgy lunch at the Calcutta Club.

Cass said, “What would you say if I extended an olive branch to Gideon?”

Terry tore off a piece of naan and dipped it in crispy okra and yogurt. “Fine, as long as you were smacking him across the face with it.”

Cass smiled and forked a piece of Manchurian cauliflower. Terry popped some chicken tikka masala into his mouth.

“Right now I would guess he’s frantically building some kind of moat around himself,” Terry said. “ He didn’t hire this wacko. He didn’t know. Elderheaven’s a huge company. Yada yada. Why should he be held responsible? He’s just as horrified as anyone. More horrified. More horrified than you, anyway. You were this hairball’s inspiration. His ‘personal goddess.’ Sending him autographed photos saying, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! Keep up the good work!’”

Cass dabbed a bit of bhindi from her lips. “What we ought to be doing is calling time-out to Gideon’s and my catfight and shifting the spotlight onto Randy.”

“I’m kind of enjoying the catfight. Everyone is. Why cancel the best show on TV?”

“Not canceling, entirely. But shifting the focus. Look, it’s worked, in a way, the whole Transitioning thing. It’s got the government focused and on the defensive. If he’s really got a shot at the vice presidency.”

Terry stared, a forkful of karavee bhindi suspended in midair. “You don’t honestly think they’re going to give it to him, do you?”

“Why take chances? You were the one always telling me you wanted to elect someone president.”

“Sure. I also wanted to sleep with Grace Kelly, play with the Rolling Stones, and throw the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Instead I ended up running a beauty parlor on K Street for corporate criminals. Life is funny sometimes.”

“So, here’s your shot. This could be one of those moments of synchronicity. The stars are in alignment.”

Terry looked up at the ceiling. “Those are light bulbs, not stars.”

“You want to throw a winning touchdown? Put on your spikes. The game’s started.”

“What about Transitioning?” Terry said.

“Meta-issue. Pointless now. I was trying to get my generation out from under this Everest of debt. Randy just added more to it with his giveaways. Jumping into bed with the Boomer lobbies. Your generation. Honestly.”

“Those people don’t speak for me.”

“Oh, come on. You know what the Boomer concept of sacrifice consists of? Three-day ground instead of overnight air delivery on your fifty-inch plasma screen high-def TV. Why did I ever think that Boomers would step up to the plate and do something altruistic? And don’t tell me about Bill Gates giving away all his money. He’s got tons left.”

“So Miss Go Long is giving up?” Terry said.

“The FBI wants to seize my computers to see if I’ve been issuing kill orders to deranged male nurses. Right now I’m not in a position to go long on advocating legal suicide.”

“See your point. Jesus, that reminds me-we gotta delete those files.”

“But with the right handling, I think we could give the senator from the great state of Massachusetts a shove toward the Oval Office. Whatever your personal feelings for him. Speaking of which,” Cass said, “he seems to have asked me to, uh, marry him.”

Terry stared. “You buried the lead.”

“I was going to mention it.”

“What did you tell him?”

Cass said. “A Washington answer. I told him I’d get back to him.”

“Well, what in the name of God does the FBI know?”

The president, in no good mood, as usual, spoke from an exercise treadmill. His physician-a four-star U.S. Navy admiral-had admonished him sternly about his blood pressure and sedentary regimen. Bucky Trumble, whose own BP and cholesterol levels were nothing to boast about, stood close by in the manner of courtier, having to raise his voice over the whirr of the rubber belt and rollers.

“They don’t think this Clumm character was taking orders from her. There are no phone records to or from. Or e-mails. Still, they want to look at her computers, but-”