“Hayden Cork—Corky, as you call him in front of people who have been in public service longer than you’ve been alive—is the White House Chief of Staff. He has one goal in all of this. Serving the President. I wouldn’t make an enemy of him, just for the sake of satisfying your own ego. This can be a mean town, Judge. Very mean. You have no idea. You might just find yourself needing a friend or two. On the other hand,” the old man said airily, “you might just make it to the finish line. In which case, you won’t need any friends for the rest of your life. You’ll be home free.”
“You don’t sound exactly thrilled at the prospect.”
“May I speak frankly, Judge?”
“Why not?”
“I know this is a big moment in your life. But to me, it’s just another Thursday morning.”
Pepper stared at the old man, who returned her stare implacably.
“Ouch,” Pepper said. “But I appreciate the honesty.”
“Whether you make it concerns me only to the extent it affects the President.” Graydon crooked his head in the direction of the White House. “I happen to like him. I admire what’s he’s trying to do—against considerable odds. If you turn the hearings into some simulacrum of your television program, just to humiliate Mitchell and the others—which I don’t doubt you can since you are a clever girl—they won’t be able to retaliate directly if they sense that the country is with you. So they’ll take it out on him. They’re already trying to, with this idiotic Presidential Term Limit Amendment. The irony is he’s . . . I gather he’s let you in on the dirty little secret.”
Pepper said, “What secret?”
“Very good. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. That he’s not planning to run for reelection.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Graydon smiled. “
Very
good, Judge. But you can relax, because he told me that he told you. He doesn’t want to reveal it yet because the moment he does, he’s a lame duck. For the time being he needs to have people assume he will, in order to exercise what power remains to him. But Mitchell and his band of assassins
can
make the rest of his months in office a torment. You, meanwhile, will be safe in your new marble bunker. Impervious. It’s the ultimate job. No one can take it away from you,” he said benignly, “until you start wrapping your ears in tin foil.” His expression turned grave. “He’s handing you the keys to the kingdom, Judge Cartwright. Be grateful. We understand each other?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir?” Graydon smiled. “Well, well. I feel as though I’ve just been promoted.”
T
HE MURDER BOARD
*
RESUMED
. Pepper kept her lip buttoned, her answers businesslike and polite. She rose to no bait. Hayden kept the questions judicial—where did she stand on original intent, judicial temperament, the role of a judge versus a legislator, prayer in school, racial profiling, should the Pledge of Allegiance contain the words “under God,” and naturally, abortion—the object, of course, being to say as little as possible in as many words as possible.
On a discreet signal from Graydon, Hayden turned to another page of his briefing tome and in a mild tone of voice said, “Judge Cartwright, your father was a Dallas police officer?”
Pepper stiffened slightly. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”
Hayden let it hang there a moment, and then said, “Before continuing on to another profession?”
Pepper relaxed. “Correct again, Senator.”
“He’s a minister, down in Texas.”
“First Sabbath Tabernacle of Plano. Giving witness to the Word, twenty-four seven, rain or shine, hell or high water, no sin too small, no crime too dire. Yeaaaah, Jesus!”
“Sorry?”
“It’s how he begins his Sunday broadcast.”
“Ah. Yes. Growing up in that environment must have affected your own religious views?”
“Certainly, sir. But as to that, I don’t really
have
any religious views.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, Senator, we all keep the Sabbath in our own way.”
“May I ask how you keep it?”
“In bed with a crossword puzzle, coffee, and a croissant.”
“I see.”
“I could leave out the croissant part at the hearings, if you want, if you think it sounds too French. Want me to substitute bagel? Or is that too Jewish? What about crumb cake? Crumb cake sounds American enough.”
Hayden and the other senators exchanged uneasy stares.
Hayden said, “Your lack of religious views, again, if I may, I don’t mean to . . . what I’m trying to get at is . . .”
“Let me help you out here, Senator. When I was nine years old I watched my momma get hit by lightning. Now, my daddy interpreted that as the Almighty’s punishment for playing golf on the Sabbath and built a whole church around it. I drew a different inference.”
Hayden said, “The inference being . . . I don’t mean to pry, but . . .”
“That God is a son of a bitch,” she said.
S
HE SAID
that
?” the President said.
It was later the same day. He had just handed a wornout–looking Graydon Clenndennynn a double martini and had poured himself a frosty schooner of beer.
“Freely,” Graydon said. “Gleefully. She’s an atheist. Proud of it.”
“Oh, my,” said the President.
“From what I gather, it didn’t help that that the gaga father baptized her by holding her head underwater in front of thousands of people at that absurd church of his. Hayden did a very lawyerly job of drawing it out of her. Not that she held back, mind you. We spoke to her privately about de-emphasizing it at the hearings. But it’s an Achilles’ heel. If it comes up, Mitchell will chomp down on it like a terrier.”
“There have been Supreme Court justices who didn’t believe in God. Haven’t there?”
“Yes, but I don’t think they presented their views quite so gleefully or vividly at the confirmation hearings. My reading of her is that she wants to disqualify herself. I’m not a psychologist, but that’s my sense of it.”
“Hm,” the President said. “Well, maybe it will come off as refreshing. Santamaria practically wears his Knights of Malta feather cap to Court. She’s honest. Transparent. A breath of fresh Texas air. The people will respond. I know it.”
“Donald, according to polls, more people in this country believe in the Immaculate Conception than in evolution. I don’t know why you’re always carrying on about the so-called ‘wisdom of the American people.’ Half of the population seems to me to be demented. Belong in cages . . .”
“Maybe it won’t come up,” said the President.
“I wouldn’t count on that. There are five thousand reporters out there, digging. Like worms.”
The President sipped his beer. “Her father, the TV reverend. He’ll balance out the religious aspect. It’ll be fine.”
“The Reverend Roscoe,” Graydon said morosely. “Quite the trailer park we seem to have wandered into.”
“I never realized you were such a snob, Graydon,” the President said. “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve always known you were a snob. But don’t discount the Reverend Roscoe. He’s a major player down there, you know. I’ve been to one of his barbecues.”
“Really?” Graydon said. “Were the ribs to the desired consistency and flavor?”
“Darned tasty. Maybe we ought to get him up here for the hearings.”
“God, please, no. He’ll start speaking in tongues. And it would only remind everyone of the Ruby business. She seems fond of the grandfather. Former sheriff. His name is JJ, wouldn’t you know? Droopy mustache, big shiny belt buckle, soulful eyes. He’ll do. Your wise American people love that sort of thing.”
D
eclan Hardwether, at forty-nine years old the second youngest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the most powerful man in the country—at least so it was often put—was stuck in traffic.
The situation did not improve his mood, which had been sour anyway since his wife had announced several months ago that she was leaving him for a retired army colonel named Doreen, Doreen being the major’s first name.
One week prior to that breakfast table bombshell, Chief Justice Hardwether had cast the deciding vote to legalize gay marriage in the United States. After telling him that she was leaving, his wife, Tony (née Antoinette), told him that once their divorce was final, she and Doreen would marry.
“And I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for that, Dec,” she said, without a trace of irony.
By noon she was gone, taking with her (so to speak) the large house in McLean outside Washington, two of the three expensive German cars, the very expensive vacation home in Maine, and the bank account, all of those being hers, anyway, benisons of inherited wealth. Tony’s maternal grandfather had poured most of the concrete between Chicago and Milwaukee.
As he boxed up his personal effects, Chief Justice Hardwether pondered in his study over a depleting bottle of Scotch whether he should go after her for half her dough. He was entitled to it, according to his reading of the law. He entertained pleasant fantasies: freezing her assets, having secret police throw her in jail.
But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that a messy divorce would only keep the (goddamn) spotlight on him. He no longer dared turn on the TV late at night for fear of hearing himself made the butt of another monologue joke by some half-wit talk show host.
Declan Hardwether looked out the car window at the Potomac River. The turbid water was flowing faster than his car was moving. His head hurt. He chided himself.
Got to lay off the late-night snorts. For that matter, the midday snorts.
It was, he knew, not a good sign that he had started to carry little bottles of mouthwash. Had he really fooled Justice Plympton, Court den mother, when he explained that his sudden minty freshness of breath was the result of “a gum thing” that required frequent rinsings? To judge from the look on her face, no, he had not fooled Paige. Would she have given him a warm hug and said, “You know we love you, Dec,” because she was concerned about his gums?
The car continued its crawl across the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. With any luck, he’d miss his flight.
He was on his way to give a speech at Lutheran Law in St. Paul. It had been arranged months before Tony’s disastrous announcement. Canceling it was out of the question. Worse—he rubbed his forehead—he had agreed to do a Q&A after his speech. Meaning he had no choice but to face reporters. He had managed to limit his contacts with the press to smiling at the bastards and giving them a quick wave as he walked briskly from his front door to the car—
Hi, hello, good morning, wonderful to see you, wonderful . . .
—as they screeched at him, “Any second thoughts on gay marriage, Chief?”
Har, har, har.
The reporters weren’t the only ones camped on his front lawn. It had turned into a shantytown of protesters who, to judge from the signs they shook at him, had way too much free time on their hands:
HARDWETHER—REAP AS YE SOW!
CHIEF
INJUSTICE
HARDWETHER!
HARDWETHER: ROT IN HOMO HELL!
His cell phone vibrated. Tony. A text message.
Can u be out of house by end of wk? Realtor wants to do Open House. Hope u r OK. Love T.
Not yet ten a.m. on a Wednesday, and the most powerful man in the country wanted a drink. Needed a drink. Maybe if he just drank the entire bottle of Listerine. Mouthwash had alcohol in it, didn’t it?
His cell vibrated again. A call. Mertz, his clerk, alerting him to a story in today’s
Washington Times
, an interview with Justice Silvio Santamaria, in which he described the Chief Justice’s vote in
Fantods v. Utley
(the gay marriage ruling) as “an abomination.” Mertz hesitated before reading his boss Justice Santamaria’s next comment, about how Justice Hardwether “should consider exchanging his black robe for a more appropriate color. Scarlet might be appropriate.”
Thanks, Silvio. Damn collegial of you.
The fact was that the Hardwether Court was a divided court. One-third of the justices had been appointed by conservative presidents; one-third by liberal presidents; and another third by presidents of no consistent ideology. Half the justices had proved to be disappointments to the presidents who appointed them, the conservatives voting liberal and the liberals voting conservative and the middle-of-the-roaders swerving like drunk drivers from right to left. Nine times out of ten, the Court voted
5–4
.
Consistent razor-thin majorities are not a sign of a happy court—or a happy country. The Court had split
5–4
on affirmative action, right-to-life, right-to-death, gun control, capital punishment, school prayer, partial birth abortion, stem cell research, torture, free speech, border security, interstate commerce, copyright, immigration, pharmaceutical patents, even on a case involving graffiti. A Court that couldn’t agree whether there had been a violation of the First Amendment rights of a seventeen-year-old arrested for spray painting obscene slogans on a pair of Mormon missionaries was not likely to reach consensus on larger issues.
“It is at this point unclear,” the
Times
noted, “whether this Court could agree on the law of gravity.”
Personal tensions, long simmering, had begun to bubble to the surface. Some justices had barely addressed a word to each other in years, which made for a frosty atmosphere in conference where they all had to sit at a table and discuss cases and vote. Paige Plympton, the only justice who was on speaking terms with every other justice, did what she could to warm things up, but it was tough going. When she arranged a picnic outing for the justices and their families, two showed up.
*
The Court was in this regard perhaps reflective of the country as a whole. The last presidential election had been decided by four electoral votes and a popular plurality of
14,000
. The majorities in the House and Senate were thinner than slices of deli-cut salami. Even the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, normally not a hotbed of intramural dissent and backbiting, was now the scene of ad hominem remarks, leaks, and even shoving matches. The Yeats line about things falling apart and the center not holding was being quoted so often it had started to turn up on refrigerator magnets in airport gift shops. One pundit had suggested that the Treasury ought to stop printing the words
E pluribus unum
on the nation’s coinage and substitute
Every man for himself.
Even the occasional terrorist attack didn’t seem to bring the country together these days. Within a day or two, everyone was back to squabbling about whose fault it was and who should pay for it.