No Way to Treat a First Lady (16 page)

A collective tubercular sound came from the press section. Eyes rolled like tumblers in slot machines. Judge Dutch glanced sternly.

"You were an overnight guest in the White House on the night of September twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of last year?"

"Yes."

Babette's attorneys, Morris, Howard, and Ben, had drilled into her the absolute necessity of answering
as briefly as possible.
They were anxious about their client's predilection for lengthy—indeed, interminable—statements. Taciturnity is as rare in Hollywood as fur.

"Had you been an overnight guest in the White House on previous occasions?"

"Yes."

Two one-word answers in a row. Observers marveled. Had Morris, Howard, and Ben installed a shock collar on her?

"How many times?"

"The First Family and I were friends. I stayed there numerous occasions."

Beth scribbled on her legal pad and slid it over to Boyce: "Friend of First Family?"

"How many times, Ms. Van Anka?"

"I couldn't say."

"Couldn't say or won't say?"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"Ms. Van Anka, this is the official log kept by the White House usher of overnight guests. It shows that you stayed overnight in the White House a total of fifty-six times."

"If that's what it says. I'm honored."

"Would you say that fifty-six times is a lot?"

"That depends on your definition of 'a lot.' "

"On how many of those occasions was your husband also an overnight guest?"

Boyce rose, Galahad defender of the sanctity of the Grab-Van Anka marriage, to express his outrage.

"Your Honor, setting aside for a moment the prosecution's sneering, harassing tone, this question is utterly without relevance."

"Overruled."

After pickaxing away at Babette, the deputy AG established that Mr. Grab "had only been able to join" Babette at the White House on four occasions. Four occasions, out of fifty-six.

"Your husband, then, was with you only seven percent of the time you were there?"

"If that's what it comes out to. Mr. Grab is a busy man. He's frequently away on business."

"What kind of business is he in?"

"The business kind of business."

"Explain that to the court, if you would."

"He finances things. He makes things happen. Wonderful things that benefit humanity."

"What sorts of things?"

"Objection. Your Honor, what possible relevance does it have that Ms. Van Anka's husband is a respected international financier and philanthropist, who has given considerable sums of money to minorities and other charities?"

"Your Honor, I object to counsel's objection."

"Approach," Judge Dutch said, glowering.

Sidebar.

"Ms. Van Anka," the deputy AG continued, finally, "are you familiar with this quote that appeared in the Los Angeles newspaper about you: 'Babette Van Anka, she's so bad you wanna spanka'?"

"Objection. Your Honor, this sacred court of law is no place for scandal-mongers and low gossip."

"Overruled."

Under his breath, Boyce muttered, "All right, then, it
is."

"I must have missed the paper that day," Babette replied. "I'm busy, too, you know."

"You've never heard this quote before?"

"I heard it."

"And what does it refer to?"

"Not my acting or singing, hopefully."

Laughter.

Nick Naylor thought,
Yesss.
It was his line.

The deputy attorney general smiled.
Okay, toots, you wanna have fun? Let's have fun.

"Was it your practice, Ms. Van Anka, before spending the night in the White House, to purchase erotic underwear and erotic devices, at a store in Los Angeles called QQ?"

Babette paled. Boyce leapt to his feet.

"Your Honor, this is an outrageous invasion of privacy, and an affront to women everywh—"

Judge Dutch motioned them forward to sidebar number 127.

The mention of QQ sent a palpable thrum through the courtroom. QQ was a boutique that had been started by a woman who before going to jail had operated one of Los Angeles's most elite escort services. After three and a half years of working in the prison laundry, she opened QQ with the backing of those of her former clients whom she had not publicly identified during her trial. It specialized in exotic, upscale lingerie and romantic "excess-ories," as its catalog put it. If Tiffany were taken over by
Hustler
magazine, the result would be QQ. One popular item was the mink-lined crotchless panties ($2,500). A Victorian corset with whalebone stays went for $800. Then there was the set of four sterling silver balls connected by a string with a handle at the end ($3,200).

The TV commentators all waited for someone else to explain to the public what QQ stood for. Judge Dutch groaned inwardly.

The whole world was waiting. In Denver, a pilot delayed pulling back from the gate so that he would not miss hearing on the live radio broadcast what this QQ stood for. Moreover, the passengers approved the delay and heckled a supervisor who came aboard to order the pilot to depart.

At the defense table, Beth thought back to the time when, in an attempt to stimulate her husband's waning interest in her, she had ordered some racy silk thingees from a catalog. She'd put it all on one night, feeling foolish looking at the garter-belted, stockinged, and bustiered reflection in the mirror. Beth MacMann—in a bustier! She'd lit scented candles, dabbed perfume all over, put on romantic music, lain back on the bed, and waited for him to come through the door. And waited. When he'd finally walked in it was past three, and it had been obvious that even he had already had his fill of sex for one night.

Judge Dutch cleared his throat. "Proceed, Ms. Clintick." By now Babette was a jittery wreck. Her intellectual glasses kept sliding off her nose.

"Ms. Van Anka, do you purchase lingerie and sexual-related items at a store in Los Angeles called QQ?"

"I may have. I shop at a lot of stores in Los Angeles."

The deputy AG asked the court to enter into evidence fourteen credit card receipts in Babette's name from "QQ Enterprises, Ltd." One by one, they were projected on the screen mounted in the courtroom. The purchases totaled some $23,725. Doubtless, that would impress those on the jury supporting families of four on $30,000.

"These are yours, Ms. Van Anka?"

Babette studied them through her glasses as though they were recently unearthed Dead Sea scrolls.

"Apparently."

"Let me draw your attention to the last receipt. What is the date on that?"

"I can't tell."

"Upper left. Would you read that date for the court, please?"

"September twenty-sixth."

"The item listed, would you read it, please?"

"I can't see. These are reading glasses."

"Very well, with the court's permission, I will. 'Mink massage mitt.' Twelve hundred dollars.

"Ms. Van Anka, what does the name of the store where you purchased these items refer to?"

"I wouldn't know that."

"Does it stand for—"

"Objection. Speculation. Speculation of the most prurient—"

"Sustained."

The world would have to wait until that evening, when one unrestrained guest commentator blurted out what everyone at this point already knew. QQ stood for "Quivering Quim," the Victorian term for—never you mind.

Onto the courtroom screen was projected a series of slides. Each vertically filled one-third of the screen. The first was titled "Van Anka Purchases at QQ Boutique, by Date."

The second was titled "B. Van Anka Overnight Stays at White House, by Date."

The third, filling in the last third of the screen, was titled "Nights First Lady E. MacMann Absent from White House, by Date."

The date of each of Babette's fourteen purchases at QQ preceded by one or two days her visits to the White House. The dates of those fourteen—of fifty-six—of her stays in the White House coincided exactly with dates that Beth had been absent.

"It's a real shame," Boyce said, handing Beth a stiff vodka back in his hotel suite.

"What is?"

"That we were moneyless students when we knew each other. I'd have liked to see you in mink-lined panties. During the sidebar, Judge Dutch gave Clintick hell for going on about the silver balls."

"She seemed pretty wound up."

"She's trying the biggest case of her life. Though at this point, I think her primary objective is to hang me, not you. If that doesn't sound too conceited."

"I wouldn't want a modest lawyer defending me."

"I know we've been over this a hundred times, but you're positive he was banging Babette that night?"

"Boyce, the man was bent over from sexual exertion. I could smell her perfume on him. And when I turned on the light, he did that raccoon thing with the eyes."

"Number three did that once when she came in. I knew."

"It's charming how you've assigned numerical identities to your ex-wives. I've been in love with two men in my life, a serial adulterer and a serial divorcé. Where did I get this karma?"

"When you dumped me. Karma is as karma does. Actually, it wasn't karma at all. It was divine retribution, the wrath of an angry god, for screwing up my life."

"I love it when people of our generation feel sorry for themselves."

"I don't buy into boomer self-loathing. Our generation has accomplished many things."

"Name one."

"Disco, junk bonds, silicone implants, colorized movies, the whole concept of stress as a philosophical justification for self-indulgence. These achievements will tower above minor accomplishments like defeating Hitler, breaking the sound barrier, and inventing a vaccine for polio. Future historians will call
us
the Greatest Generation."

"I think it's why I fell for Ken. He was real."

"What wasn't 'real' about me?"

"I didn't mean it that way."

"It all has to do with your dad. He got a medal in World War Two. Then along comes a chest full of medals from another war and—boom, you're enlisted marching in his parade."

"Maybe. I never felt like spending a hundred grand on psychoanalysis to find out. I'd so much rather spend the money on lawyers."

"Well, it's reassuring that heroes can turn out to be pricks just like the rest of us nonheroes. But that still leaves unresolved the larger question."

"What?"

"How you'd look in mink-lined panties."

After another day of making Babette Van Anka look like the Slut of the Millennium, Deputy Attorney General Clintick tossed her limp, twitching carcass at Boyce for cross-examination. As Boyce rose to begin, he felt like all the king's horses and all the king's men. Humpty-Dumpty was in a thousand pieces.

Babette warily returned his smile as he approached. By now she knew he was, for whatever reason, on her side, unlike that bitch prosecutor. This Baylor person had said, "Objection!" so many times, he must have carpal tongue syndrome by now. Morris, Howard, and Ben had explained to her why he was being nice: to take away the wife's motive for killing Ken. But they'd warned her: Be careful of him.
Short answers.

Boyce walked Babette through some preliminaries to reinforce in the minds of jurors that, like many of them, she had grown up poor, that she had in her own, if somewhat overheated, way shown that the American dream worked. He maneuvered the subject around to the movie
They Call Me
General
Powell!
so that Babette could talk about how thrilling it had been to work with the actor Denzel Washington on a biographical movie about Colin Powell. He led her through a tearful account of her role in the movie
Flight 208 Is Delayed,
in which she played an Israeli paratrooper who single-handedly rescues a jumbo jet full of Hasidic schoolchildren from fanatic Palestinian hijackers. It was this experience, she told the court, that had been the epiphany that had prompted her to become a force for peace in the Middle East.

"You and President MacMann were very close, were you not?" Boyce asked, switching topics abruptly.

Babette seemed taken aback by the question.

Boyce added, "I mean, he looked to you frequently for advice on the Middle East, did he not?"

She brightened. "Oh, you don't
know."

"Do you mean by that, yes?"

"Yes. Yes. All the time, he was calling me."

Eyeballs careened sideways among the press.

"He called you specifically about the Middle East peace process?"

Boyce had learned from his idol Edward Bennett Williams that an ideal cross-examination elicits an unbroken string of yeses. It shows you have total control of the witness.

"Many times. Many,
many
times."

"He relied on you heavily for your input?"

"Yes."

"Objection."

"Your Honor, I understand that the deputy attorney general might be upset because I am questioning the witness without resorting to character assassination, innuendo, and slander, but—"

"Approach."

Boyce endured his sidebar lecture in silence. It was worth it. Later, Vlonko reported that jurors four, five, seven, and thirteen had beamed at Boyce's outburst.

"Ms. Van Anka," he continued, "are people in your position, that is, creative artists of pronounced social conscience, sometimes ridiculed or made to suffer because they dare to speak out against injustice or on behalf of oppressed—"

"Objection!"

"I will rephrase. Ms. Van Anka, have you been attacked for your activism?"

"Constantly."

Boyce shook his head sadly, as if hearing this were all just too painful.

"It must be hard."

"Objection."

"Withdrawn. Is it hard?"

"Very hard. All the time people say terrible things."

"Ms. Van Anka, is it your understanding that powerful forces in the Middle East were aware of the fact that you had the President's ear and tried to prevent you from advising him?"

"I object. I object strenuously. Your
Honor."

"Let me rephrase. Did powerful forces in the Middle East try to prevent you from advising the President of the United States on foreign policy?"