Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“I’ll think about it. By the way, how’re you coming with those volunteers-the ones who said they’d testify as willing to kill themselves at age sixty-five?”

“ Transition . Try, please, to get used to the word. But wait a minute. Why can’t you call him? I didn’t commit any crime. There’s a principle involved. Even if it’s not a principle you can cash in on right away.”

Randy sighed. “I…What if I do and they leak it that I called? You’re my girlfriend. How will it look ?”

“Like you cared about the girlfriend?”

“Awkward,” Randy muttered. “Damn awkward.”

“Okay.” Cass shrugged. “I just hope they find the diary file where I quote you calling your mother a ‘cunt.’”

“What? You wrote that in your diary?”

“It’s a diary.”

“Why would you…Oh, my God. Cass. What else did you put in there?”

“Well, let’s see. Stuff about our sex life. How you like to take cherries and-”

“Cass!”

“What can I tell you, sweetheart? I’m a girl. Men look at themselves in mirrors. Girls write in their diaries.”

“Jesus. I don’t believe this. What were the names of these FBI agents?”

“Antrim and Jackson. They looked kind of lean and hungry. One of them kept touching his gun.”

Cass hung up. Terry had been sitting next to her throughout the phone call.

“Did you really put all that in there?”

“As if. Please.”

Terry nodded in the way of a pleased mentor. One of his maxims, imparted to all his protйgйes, was: Never tell a small lie when a big one will suffice.

“So what’s with the cherries?” Terry said.

“Wouldn’t you love to know.”

“This meeting is called to order.”

“Mr. Chairman,” Gideon Payne said, “I wish to make a statement.” Gideon did not look well. His jowls sagged, and he had small blue circles under his eyes. He looked awful.

“Go ahead, Reverend.”

Gideon adjusted his spectacles and read. It was a lengthy and somewhat rambling excoriation of Arthur Clumm, Death Angel of Budding Grave-Grove-ending with a somewhat tedious, solemn, and verbose reaffirmation of the value of human life. Gideon normally ran on high-test; today he rattled, as if running on diesel.

“Mr. Chairman, may I say something?” Cass said.

“Yes, Ms. Devine,” the chair said cautiously.

“As we proceed to investigate the feasibility of Voluntary Transitioning, I too think it would be appropriate to have a moment of silence-for the victims of Budding Grove, who were involuntarily murdered. By Mr. Payne’s employee.”

“Damn you!” Gideon exploded. “He’s no ’employee’ of mine! And you, madam, are a she-devil! A she-devil! And I cast you out !”

Cass raised an eyebrow and said quietly, “Mr. Chairman, I was under the impression that I was in the hearing room for a presidential commission. I seem to have wandered by mistake into the chamber reserved for exorcisms.”

PAYNE CALLS DEATH DIVA DEVINE “SHE-DEVIL”AS TRANSITION HEARINGS DEGENERATE

“Geedeeon,” Monsignor Montefeltro said, looking worried, “dear friend. How does it go with you?”

Monsignor Montefeltro knew very well that it was not going well for his dear friend Gideon. He, along with everyone else in the country, had been glued to the proceedings on TV, and he had seen Gideon’s tantrum. The chair had had to adjourn the session. Some said that Payne’s fulminations were a disguised attempt to derail the proceedings. But if it was an act, it certainly looked very convincing. Gideon looked like a man on the verge of a heart attack. To be sure, he was under terrible strain owing to the lawsuits against Elderheaven. Lawyers were circling. He’d been served with papers by the ones representing the first wave of aggrieved families.

Cassandra Devine, meanwhile, had sat there at the dais, arms crossed, coolly rolling her eyes, an almost bemused expression on her face.

The two men sat in their usual meeting place, the monsignor’s house in Georgetown. The grandfather clock in the hall beat a calming metronomic tick-tock in contrast with Gideon’s agitation. It was cool and air conditioned, but Gideon kept having to mop perspiration from his glistening brow with his silk handkerchief. He downed the first two glasses of chilled 2001 Gaia amp; Rey briskly, gulpingly, as if trying to put out a fire that was smoldering somewhere within him.

For his part, the monsignor was in a pleasant frame of mind, having that week persuaded four wealthy Catholic widows to leave practically all their earthly possessions to Mother Church. The Vatican was well pleased.

“Massimo. It’s been the most awful time,” Gideon said. “This Clumm maniac…I’m being sued by the families for…tens of millions…and on top of it this woman, Cassandra-she’s got me all twisted up . Did you watch today?”

“Eh, no,” the monsignor lied whitely, “I was busy. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I made a fool of myself today. A terrible, pluperfect fool, and in front of the whole world.”

Gideon poured himself a third glass of wine. “She knows where all my buttons are, and she presses them every time. I-I can’t help myself.” A look of panic crossed his face. “The truth is, Massimo…do you want to hear the truth of it?”

“Yes, Geedeon. Of course.”

“I love her.”

Monsignor Montefeltro’s eyes widened. “But Geedeon. How can this be? She attacks you at every opportunity.”

“I can’t explain it.”

“Try.” The monsignor, known as one of the silkier confessors in Rome, filled Gideon’s glass.

It poured from Gideon like water sluicing from an overburdened dam. He loved Cassandra Devine, loved everything about her. He loved her first name, her last name (“I know it’s spelled differently”), her looks, the way she abused him just the way his mother used to. (Is Dr. Freud in?) She made Gideon “all goosey.” The monsignor made a note to look up the word in his Dictionary of Modern American Slang, but he had a good idea what it meant. The man was a wreck.

By the time Gideon was finished, he’d gulped down several more glasses of wine. He was glassy-eyed and spent, but calmer.

“You won’t…,” he said faintly, “tell what I’ve told you, will you?”

“Of course not, Geedeon,” Montefeltro said, though strictly speaking, since Gideon was not a Catholic, there was no actual confessional bond of secrecy involved.

“Geedeon, with all respect for your feelings, I don’t in complete honesty think there is a future for you and this Cassandra Devine.”

Gideon sighed. “No, no. I know. Oh, hell’s bells, Massimo. I can’t account for my feelings. It makes no sense at all.” He sounded drugged. Well, the man had drunk six glasses of wine. “As long as I’m at it, Massimo, I got another confession for you. I’ve never been with a woman.”

“Ah.” Montefeltro nodded, rather hoping this was the last confession of the evening. It was one thing to listen to old Catholic biddies tell him they’d been rude to their chauffeurs, but he didn’t really care to go spelunking in Gideon’s soul. God knew what goblins lurked there.

“God loves you for your purity, Geedeon. You serve Him as the apostles served our blessed-”

“I would like to be with a woman.”

“Ah. Yes, well…” The monsignor nodded, now in full confession-hearing mode. “We all have certain feelings. This is natural. Even I from time to time-”

“I’m not attractive to women. I know that.”

“Nonsense! You are a…” Well, yes, true, you look like a frog. “A powerful man. People all over the country, the world, respect you. You are the Reverend Geedeon Payne. Friend of the president.”