Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“The FBI seems to think it’s serious enough. Want the headline? JEPPERSON’S ADVISERS ON NORTH KOREAN PAYROLL.”

The president considered. “Well, I do like that headline.”

“Thought you might.” Whew.

The president’s leather chair squeaked. “Now, a headline like that, you don’t want to spend it right away. You want to hold on to it for a while. Save it for just the right occasion. Like…”

“Before the New Hampshire primary?”

“Or even after. You’ll convey this to our good friends at the Bureau?”

“I’m shakin’ it, boss!” Bucky said brightly. “I’m shakin’ it!”

It was a line from the movie Cool Hand Luke . Bucky used it in the old days, when just he and Governor Peacham were flying around in a single-engine Cessna hitting a dozen campaign stops in a day. Back then, Peacham would laugh and laugh at the line, which conveyed just the right amount of irony and servility. Now all he said to his faithful retainer was, “Okay, then,” and went back to his paperwork, an impassioned personal plea to the head of the Federal Reserve not to raise the prime rate to 20 percent.

Bucky returned to his office, feeling thoroughly exhausted and a bit ungratefully used. He loosened his tie and checked his e-mail. He had three hundred, including one from his assistant slugged “Urgent-Read ASAP.”

He opened the e-mail. It contained a link to a story in the online Yale Daily News. What on earth kind of urgency could there possibly be in a story in a college newspaper? He clicked on the link and read.

“Oh,” he said to no one in particular, “shit.”

Frank Cohane’s secretary, Jean, reached him as he was driving home from the yacht basin. (He kept a spare cell phone in the glove compartment of his Ferrari Enzo.)

She read him the story in the online Yale Daily News . When she got to the paragraph where the hapless Boyd admitted, on record, that “yeah, I guess my stepdad sort of dealt with the situation, threw some bucks at them, whatever, made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. He’s pretty cool that way,” Frank’s fury reached such intensity that for his own safety he had to pull the Enzo over to the dirt shoulder and hyperventilate.

According to Kane’s story, “Yale has no official comment, but a spokesperson in the development office notes that ‘Mr. Cohane has been, and continues to be, a wonderfully generous supporter of Yale.’ Dean of Undergraduates John Wilkinson did not return repeated calls asking for clarification as to Baker’s academic status.”

“Is that it?” Frank moaned.

“Yes, Mr. Cohane. In the meantime, you’ve had quite a few calls. Mr. Trumble from the White House: ‘Urgent, please call right away.’ Also President Reigeluth of Yale: ‘Urgent, please call as soon as possible.’”

Frank hung up and deliberated which call to return first: the chief political adviser to the president of the United States or the president of Yale. Eenie-meenie…

“Buck. Frank.”

“Frank. Jesus.”

“What can I tell you? Fucking kid reporters.”

Frank was about to unleash a stream of expletives on the topic of his moron son-in-law when, ex nihilo, an inspiration occurred, and with not a second to spare.

“What can I tell you,” Frank said. “I love that boy. He’s like my own son . ”

Silence. Frank waited to see if this inspired bit of spontaneous mendacity had hit its mark.

“That’s very, uh, decent of you, Frank.”

“Ah, well,” Frank said, “the old Washington solution, right? Hurl money at the problem and see if it’ll go away. They can’t prove a thing. So I’m generous. Last I checked, it’s not a crime.”

“Frank,” Bucky said, “I was actually going to call you about another matter.”

Frank had forgotten to activate the recording device on his car phone. He did now. “Yeah? Shoot.”

“That, uh, matter we discussed? About the FBI and those com-puters?”

“What computers?”

Bucky sounded uncomfortable. He could hear cars going by on the other end and assumed Frank was on his cell phone. He didn’t like to speak too candidly on those. “At the Wok’n Roll? Remember?”

“Oh. Yeah. That. What about it?”

“Well, I had been kind of left with the impression that you were going to follow through on that thing we discussed.”

“Follow through? How do you mean?”

Bucky’s discomfort became suddenly acute. “Frank?”

“Yes, Bucky?”

“Are you…recording this phone call?”

“I record all my phone calls. In fact, I record all my conversations. Even the ones in crummy Chinese restaurants in Arlington.”

“Frank-what are you saying?”

“Nothing. For the time being. I’ll be in touch. Tell the president I’m looking forward to this campaign. In fact, I want to be closely involved. Closely.”

Bucky’s breath came in gasps. Frank hung up.

Frank’s next call was to the head of his Internet division. He instructed him to pour a major amount of Spider Repellent TMall over the online Yale Daily News so anyone Googling “Cohane” and “bribe” and “Yale” would come up with zero matches.

Having blackmailed the president’s top adviser and taken care of his own little scandal-not bad for ten minutes on the shoulder-Frank Cohane put the Enzo in gear, roared back onto the eucalyptus-scented Pacific Coast Highway, and gunned the engine toward home. He was actually looking forward to torturing Lisa with the latest evidence of her son’s nincompoopery. Under the circumstances, he felt entitled to squeeze every drop of satisfaction from it, while at the same time congratulating himself on having outfoxed a very big bad wolf. Bucky Trumble’s balls now belonged to him. As Frank reflected on it, with instincts like his, he should be quite an asset to the Peacham campaign. Yes indeed, quite an asset.

He whistled as he drove.

Gideon Payne was in pain, and not just physical.

Try as he might to remember having willingly handed over to the two odious Russian prostitutes his precious watch and fob-handed down all the way from his sharpshooter ancestor-he couldn’t. He had no memory of it. None. (“An alcoholic blackout, perhaps,” Monsignor Montefeltro suggested.) And now those two-shudder-Muscovite jezebels not only knew what Gideon looked like, but were in possession of a watch engraved with his name. The thought of it gave him chest constrictions.

He did, vaguely, dimly, unfortunately, remember using the monsignor’s phone on that dreadful night of nights…and asking the directory operator for the number of an escort service. “Any- hic -escort service.” Oh, the wages of sin.

Now, every time a phone rang-any phone-Gideon trembled and broke out in cold sweat. Was it-them?

He heard a chastising voice inside him, mocking: My, my, my , how the wicked do lie…in wait upon the Judgment Day.

He kept a low profile. He must show up at the last meeting of the Transitioning commission. He had to. But what if the Russian jeze-bels watched C-SPAN? Oh, Lord…

Monsignor Montefeltro, meanwhile, now found himself in a deepening hole of his own digging.

The monsignor had decided that the only thing to do was pay the wretched Russian blackmailers the $900 they were demanding. He got the cash (from his personal account), put on civilian clothes and bug-eye dark glasses of the kind once favored by Jackie Onassis and Greta Garbo, and arranged to meet the ghastly Ivan or Vladimir-he didn’t ask which-at a designated street corner in Georgetown, far from his own home. Once there, he handed over the envelope to the cigarette-smoking Russian, who ripped it open, thumbed the bills, and then grunted at him, “Is not enough.”