No Way to Treat a First Lady (5 page)

"Boy, you have forgotten everything. Including the most important rule of all: The truth has no place in a court of law."

"I don't remember being taught that"

"In the real estate business it's location, location, location. In a trial, it's perception, perception, perception."

"Perception," Beth said. "Look at this." She held up the
New York Post.

It was a photo of the two of them from the mock trial at Georgetown.

Boyce shrugged. "They've been calling you that for years."

Beth slammed her palm down on the conference room table. "Well, it's not pleasant."

"Look at you. And you want to take the stand? By the way, how come you didn't wipe your fingerprints off the Paul Revere silver spittoon after you hit him with it?"

"Nice try."

Boyce smiled. "Good girl. We'll use the fact that your fingerprints were all over Mr. Spittoon as evidence that you didn't murder him, since a murderer, even a moron, would have wiped her fingerprints off the murder weapon. But forget taking the stand. Or I'm on the next shuttle back to New York. I'd forgotten how uncomfortable commercial aviation is."

"Oh, spare me. Your little jet would fit in the lounge of Air Force One."

Boyce chuckled. "Why didn't you just tell the FBI that you threw the spittoon at him?"

"I panicked. I was scared. There he was in bed next to me, dead. If I'd told them what happened, it would have looked..."

"Like you killed him."

"But I didn't kill him, Boyce. I chucked the spittoon at him. It did hit him, on the forehead. But it wasn't
that
hard. He barely flinched. Well, he went back a bit. But he didn't fall down."

Boyce stared.

"I've thrown heavier things at him, you know."

"That'll sound good to the jury, when you take the stand. 'I've thrown heavier things at him, you know.' "

"I'm telling you, it didn't make a dent. He just called me a bitch, went to the bathroom, got into bed, turned off the light, and went to sleep. Next thing I knew, I'm having my breakfast and he's—dead."

Boyce looked at the D.C. medical examiner's report and Bethesda Naval Hospital autopsy report in front of him. "Cause of death, epidural hematoma resulting from blunt-force trauma. Time of death, between three-fifteen A.M. and five A.M. Tell me this: After you ki— After you both went to sleep, did you wake up in the night to get a drink of water? To pee? Walk the parapets? Rub the blood off your hands?"

"I slept right through. I always sleep like a rock after I've clocked him."

"Don't forget to mention that, too, to the jury, when you take the stand. This Secret Service agent, Woody Birnam, who claims to have overheard an argument between you and the decedent—"

"Why don't you just call him Ken? It's not like you didn't know him."

"Huh!"

"If you're still churning about it, I think you owe it to me to say so."

"Owe
you?"

"Boyce, I'm going to need all of you in court. Not just all of you minus the ten percent that's still seething."

"If I were still seething and churning, why on earth would I have taken this case?"

She looked at him. "First, so that you could finally get the whip hand in this relationship."

"I always have the whip hand in the attorney-client relationship."

"Second, to show the world that you're so goddamn magnanimous, you'd defend the woman who du—who broke up with you back when."

"Magnanimity is for wusses."

"And third, in order to lose the case on purpose—in such a way that everyone would say, 'Oh, even Shameless Baylor couldn't have gotten her off,' so that I'll end up in jail or on death row. Just to get even with me."

"I cannot believe," Boyce said, affecting chagrin, "that you think that I'm capable of that. Is this what politics does to a person's soul?"

Beth laughed. "Oh dear, that's good. Look, I need to know. Are you in or out? Psychically."

So much for the whip hand. "I'm in."

"All right, then."

"For the record," Boyce said, "the decision to break off our engagement was mutual."

"Of course it was."

Dammit. There was no winning with her.

"Why were you so sure that he'd been doing push-ups with Babs in the Lincoln Bedroom?"

"The look on his face when he came in and I flicked on the light. He didn't look like he'd been in the Sit Room deploying aircraft carriers."

"His philandering, was it as bad as the rumors and reports?"

"Worse. What's so funny?"

"I was remembering how worried you were that his willy had been shot off by the Vietnamese. But if you knew he was having an affair with Van Anka, what—pray—was she doing as a guest in your house?"

"I know, I know," Beth said, defeated. "It's so—God, the
deals
you strike."

"I have to explain it to the jury. I mean, here's this hump-happy husband and you're allowing him to bring bunnies in for sleep-overs down the hall."

"I didn't invite her. I can't stand her. I don't like anything about her. Even her singing, much less her quote-unquote acting."

"So what's she doing there in Abe's bed, pumping the commander in chief?"

"It's... she's a star. She draws. Her husband, Max, is a huge financier, major donor to the party. They're a power couple."

"Okay, so why not have both of them over? You could do a foursome."

"Screw you, Boyce."

"Just trying to be helpful."

"We did have them both over. But neither of us really liked Max. He's a bore in that way that some financiers are. Then there was some heat in the papers about some of his business connections. Anyway, he sort of stopped coming. Babette was the friend, anyway."

"I'll say."

"She put on fund-raisers. Raised a lot of money for us."

"A jury averaging twenty-five thousand of income a year will be thrilled to hear it." Boyce studied the Secret Service log. "Jesus. She spent more nights in the Lincoln Bedroom than Lincoln. Fifty-six visits in two and a half years? Did she get miles?"

"We had an arrangement. Ken wasn't to sleep with her when I was in residence."

"This was an interesting marriage you had."

"Who are you to talk? Four marriages, the last one, to that Victoria's Secret model, lasted how long? Six months?"

"We were blissfully happy the first two months."

"Boyce, you're the Elizabeth Taylor of trial lawyers. Do not lecture
me
on how to conduct a happy marriage."

"We still have to sell it to the jury. You have an arrangement—somewhat unusual by the standards of the American presidency, you may admit. He breaks the arrangement and the next thing you know, kaboom on the noggin and they're saddling the riderless horse for the trip to Arlington. Forgive me, but we have some explaining to do for Mr. and Mrs. Jury."

"I didn't kill him. I
know
I did not kill him."

"Fine, but you whacked him with the spittoon and next morning he's Mr. Frosty. Reasonable human beings, including the FBI, the Justice Department, the attorney general, the media—"

"The media? Reasonable? Human?"

"—and, according to the latest poll, sixty-eight percent of the American public, two-thirds—think you killed him."

"Whose side are you on?"

"For a thousand dollars an hour, yours. But you want to start with the jury's worst suspicions. It's always the best baseline. Okay. So he could have slipped in the bathroom and gotten back into bed and died. But that's not much in the way of an alternate narrative. For one thing, there's the Paul Revere hallmark they found stamped on his forehead."

Boyce studied the photograph of the President's forehead. "It's kind of pronounced. We'll do some computer enhancing... we can probably make it look ambiguous. Get some friendly skin experts in, make it..." He grunted. "Maybe if we showed it upside down.... Well, we'll figure something out."

He tossed the photo aside and gave Beth an assessing look. "You're looking good these days."

"Thank you," Beth said in a businesslike way.

"Do you work out?"

"When I can. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Do you
exercise?
Pump iron? Treadmill? Tae-bo, whatever it's called?"

"A trainer used to come four times a week. Why?"

"Because the jury is going to be wondering if you were strong enough to lift a"—he glanced at the autopsy report—"two-hundred-and-eight-pound dead president off the floor and into bed. I see the War God put on a few pounds over the years. What do you weigh?"

"Hundred and thirty-eight."

"We start jury selection in four months. I want you down to one twenty."

"You want me to look anorexic? The media's going to see through that."

"It's not for the media. It's for the jury."

"The prosecutor will find a way to point out that I've lost weight since the incident."

"And we'll say, 'You insensitive swine, of course she's lost weight. She lost her husband. This is a grieving widow, look at her, and you're putting her through this hell.' "

"I'll lose the weight."

"Look on the bright side—you can take up smoking again. You used to love to smoke after... wards. The maid, this Sophie Williams, who brought you a hot breakfast while War God was cooling beside you, does she like you?"

"Like me? I suppose."

"No, no, no, do not 'suppose.' When she takes the stand, will she, a black woman, convey to a substantially black jury that you are a wonderful, kind, thoughtful employer who remembers staff birthdays and whose kid broke his arm and whose aunt just died? The sorts of things that thoughtful big people do for the little people?"

"I should think. Yes. You know, the Lady Bethmac thing was never—that was unfair. I'm not a bitch."

"Hm."

"I am
not
a bitch, Boyce. Just because I fired some people on the White House staff."

"Why'd you give them the sack?"

"In one case because the staffer was giving my husband blow jobs on Air Force One."

"He was head of state. How many did you sack?"

"Over the two and a half years? Nine."

Boyce groaned. "This is going to be such an easy sell to the jury. You didn't kill your husband, despite the fact that he was humping the guest down the hall, as well as half the employees on the federal payroll. What really happened was he got up in the middle of the night, consumed with remorse for his cheating ways, decided to commit suicide by smashing himself in the forehead with an antique spittoon, and just before dying, tucked himself back in bed. It's so obvious. We'll move for summary dismissal."

Babette Van Anka had been in the public eye for over two decades now, since her spectacular film debut in
Expensive
—
And Worth It,
as the suburban housewife who secretly moonlights as a prostitute to support her family after her stockbroker husband is shot by a commuter train conductor upset over the bad stock tips he had given him. At the time of the President's death, her career had been in decline. She was now getting more press coverage than she'd ever had.

Their "special relationship" had been the subject of unremitting news stories ranging from sober headlines in the
Times
(ACTRESS SPENT 56 NIGHTS IN WHITE HOUSE, subheadline "Wealthy Financier Husband Was Also a Guest—Four Times") to the more exuberant ones in the supermarket tabloids (BAB'S NIGHTS OF BLISS WITH KEN). Inside one of the tabs, someone was quoted saying, "Babette Van Anka, she's so bad you wanna spanka."

Babette lived in Bel Air, the moneyed enclave in the hills looking down on Los Angeles, with her third husband, Max Grab, the international financier. He advised a number of sultans of the oil-rich archipelagoes of Southeast Asia. He was said to have, as it is put, "ties" to influential Chinese.

The Grab-Van Anka mansion was large even by Hollywood standards. The grounds included a private hippodrome and his and hers helipads. The hippodrome had caused controversy. When their neighbors complained about their plans to blast away half of the side of one of the Hollywood Hills in order to accommodate it, there was a stink. Since Babette passionately embraced environmental causes in addition to peace in the Middle East, some delicacy was required. They hired Nick Naylor, who had once been the chief spokesman for the U.S. tobacco industry.

Naylor produced a letter from an organization that taught handicapped children to ride horses. The letter praised the Grab-Van Ankas lavishly for so generously offering them unlimited use of the new hippodrome. The enraged neighbors never regained the public relations offensive.

The blasting proceeded, the hippodrome was finished, complete with chandeliers and potpourri instead of sawdust, Max Grab having an aversion to the smell of horse by-products. Max also had an aversion to handicapped children, as it turned out. The organization was quietly presented with a check by Naylor and a note suggesting they seek other facilities. The Grab-Van Ankas were no amateurs when it came to the art of spin.

But even Nick Naylor, veteran of a hundred seemingly hopeless public relations challenges, was at a loss as to how to cope with Babette's new starring role as the President's mistress or, as one glib pundit put it, frequent guest in the Lincoln Head Room.

Max had been complaisant about his wife's relationship with the late President. His physical ardor for Babette had long since given way to the more exotic refreshments provided by Los Angeles's leading madams. He had even built a separate bungalow on the property, referred to by the household staff as "the Pump House." It had its own driveway so that Madam Vicki's pageant of international talents could come and go without having to pass a tight-lipped Babette on her way home from a grueling day of making not very good movies.

Max had found it quite pleasant to be a friend of the President of the United States. It certainly impressed his patrons overseas. But this kind of publicity was disastrous. It wasn't as though he were CEO of a corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Max was an entrepreneur with "ties" to rather exotic people. Now that his wife had become notorious, he found details of his previously quiet business dealings leading the evening news. He was not pleased by this. He was not pleased that three dozen cameramen had permanently encamped outside the gates of Hanging Gardens, their estate. Thank God for the helipad. He was not pleased by the visits from the FBI, the Secret Service, and those grim-faced helots from the Justice Department. He had hired every lawyer in Los Angeles to handle it.