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CHAPTER 1

Supreme Court Associate Justice J. Mortimer Brinnin’s deteriorating mental condition had been the subject of talk for some months now, but when he showed up for oral argument with his ears wrapped in aluminum foil, the consensus was that the time had finally come for him to retire. Thank God, his fellow justices agreed-unanimously, for once-cameras weren’t allowed in the Court.

Brinnin was a distinguished jurist who had cast some of the most consequential votes of his day. But the sun had now (emphatically) set on that day. His mind, once capable of quoting entire opinions as far back as the nineteenth century, in toto and verbatim, was now succumbing to medication (for persistent sciatica) and increasingly copious evening martinis. He had taken to summoning his clerks in the middle of the night to tell them that there were moray eels in the toilet. On another occasion, also at three a. m. , he met them at the front door holding a bag of kitchen garbage and instructed them that they must get it to Omaha -without delay. (Justice Brinnin had grown up there. ) It was when Justice Brinnin became convinced that the ghost of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was whispering in his ears trying to influence his vote that he reached for the aluminum foil.

Chief Justice Declan Hardwether, who was himself going through a rough patch at the time, found the situation embarrassing. He was not by nature a confrontational man and so was at pains what to do. None of the other justices, who were, at any rate, hardly speaking to one another, wanted to intervene. So the CJ turned to the den-motherly Justice Paige Plympton.

“You’ve got to do something,” he pleaded, “before he shows up dressed like the Tin Man, singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow. ’ ”

Justice Plympton dealt with the situation with her usual grace and gentle persuasiveness. And when that didn’t work, she assembled Justice Brinnin’s children in a conference call intervention.

In due course, the Marshal of the Court hand-delivered Justice Brinnin’s letter of resignation to the White House.

PRESIDENT VANDERDAMP was not at the time riding a tidal wave of popularity. His approval ratings were, in fact, abysmal, though his press secretary was always quick to stress that they were in “the high twenties. ”

Donald P. Vanderdamp had been elected two and a half years ago in a three-way race that included a hedge-fund billionaire who spent $350 million of his own money. Vanderdamp squeaked across the finish line with two electoral votes to spare. He had run on a platform of “changing the way Washington does business. ”

Everyone who runs for president says they are going to change the way Washington does business. The surprise was that Donald P. Vanderdamp, former Eagle Scout, naval officer, mayor, governor, affable, decent, churchgoing, family-oriented, golden retriever-owning midwesterner, actually meant it. He was sixty-four years old and, as one waspish pundit put it, “fast approaching retirement age, and not a minute too soon. ” He was physically unremarkable in an Eisenhowerish sort of way: balding, trim, pleasant-looking but with the quietly commanding look of, say, an airline pilot or high school principal. Some people fill a room. Not Donald P. Vanderdamp. His blandness-what another pundit had called his “ineffable Donald-ness”-had served him well over the years. It invited underestimation. People tittered at his great passion and hobby-bowling.