Boomsday

by Christopher Buckley

  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.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Is not enough’?” the monsignor protested. “You asked for nine hundred dollars. Here is your nine hundred!”

  Ivan-Vladimir shook his head. “No. One thousand two hundred dollars is price for both girls.”

  “Nine hundred you asked for. Nine hundred I give you. And I tell you good-bye! Dasvidanya!” The monsignor stormed off in a fury.

  By the time he reached home, he was sweating profusely. When he walked in, his phone was ringing. He picked up and listened.

  “Is priest Montefeltro? Is escort service. You owe three hundred dollars.”

  “I tell you before, I am not a priest! It was a costume party!”

  “Costume party with two people?”

  “You said nine hundred dollars! I gave your gorilla nine hundred dollars! Go away!”

  “I make mistake about money. Just like you make mistake. Big mistake. Now you are owing three hundred more.”

  The iniquity! “All right, all right,” the monsignor said. “I give you the three hundred. Then it’s finished. But I want returned the watch and the chain that I gave you.”

  “No.”

  “Sì.”

  “No. Watch with chain is tip for girls. Who is Gid-yon Pine?”

  Sweat poured anew from the sacerdotal forehead. “I don’t know. It’s an antique watch.”

  “Is name on watch. Gid-yon Pine. Is he the one who called for the girls? He have a different accent from you. From south. It wasn’t you who call. You are Italian. Italian priest. According to caller ID, house is belonging to Massimo Montefeltro. So that’s you, yes?”

  The besieged monsignor closed his eyes and summoned angels and archangels with flaming swords to smite the wicked, then opened his eyes to find himself still in the parlor where the sin had taken place, still smelling faintly of Protestant barf and Mr. Clean.

  “All right, all right! Tell your Ivan or Vladmir I will meet him at the same place with three hundred dollars. Then we are finished. Finished forever.”

  “Is not necessary.”

  “What is not?”

  “To meet at same place. He is now at this moment outside your door.”

  The monsignor hung up. A moment later, it rang again. Expecting the Russian, he barked into it, “Russian pimp! I am getting your money!”

  He heard silence over the line and the faint static hiss of an overseas telephone call, followed by a tentative female Italian voice saying, in Italian, “This is the Vatican operator. Is this the residence of the Monsignor Massimo Montefeltro?”

  Jesu Christo.

  “Yes, yes,” the monsignor said in Italian, in a somewhat different tone of voice. “There was another call, to a wrong number. A nuisance.” He summoned his dignity. “It is Monsignor Montefeltro who speaks. Who is calling him?”

  “Cardinal Restempopo-Bandolini is calling. One moment, please. I will connect you.”

  Had it been any normal Tuesday morning, Montefeltro would have been delighted and even honored to receive a phone call from the holy father’s consigliere principale, personal confessor, and supreme director of the Congregation for the Propagation and Defense of the Faith. Each of these portfolios was impressive enough; combined, they made their possessor the second-highest-ranking cleric in the Vatican and thus the Catholic faith, consisting of over one billion adherents. Even other cardinals trembled at the approach on marble of the scarlet-slippered feet of Bonifaccio Cardinal Restempopo-Bandolini.

  So for Monsignor Montefeltro, this call, coming at this exact moment, was an occasion not of pride, but of pituitary gland panic. He stared into the infernal abyss, to the accompaniment of doorbell ringing and the concomitant banging of a meaty Slavic fist.

  “Massimo,” said the high-pitched voice over the phone.

  “Eminence.” Thump-thump-thump. Ding-dong. Thump-THUMP-THUMP.

  “Fraternal greetings.”

  Thump-thump-thump . . .

  “And to you, Eminence.”

  “I am calling on a matter of the most grave importance.”

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

  “Massimo, there is a noise.”

  “I beg your indulgence, Eminence. It is—construction. They are building a . . .chapel. May I call Your Eminence back from a more tranquil telephone?”

  “No, no, I must shortly accompany the holy father to an important meeting. My specific instructions will arrive in writing, by courier. But I wanted to tell you personally that there is a profound concern about this Transitioning bill in Washington.”

  “Ah. Yes, I am following it closely, Eminence. Most closely.”

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

  “You are instructed personally to denounce this bill—publicly—in the most vehement language.”

  “How do you mean, publicly, Eminence?”

  “From every pulpit. Especially television. You are very good on the television. You are to be our leader in America on this matter.”

  Monsignor Montefeltro’s mouth went as dry as an empty holy water dish.

  “But, Eminence, surely,” he croaked, “the American cardinals, the papal nuncio, they are all much better suited than I to—”

  “Massimo. Hear me. I am expressing to you the desire of the holy father himself. This is the greatest honor. You have pleased him. He reposes in you the greatest trust.”

  “The holy father is too generous. I, I must—”

  “Now I am going to tell you a great secret which you must not reveal to anyone. You are to be elevated to cardinal archbishop after the new year. You are to become the next papal nuncio to the United States. But you are not to let the holy father know that you know this. He wants to tell you himself. For it to be a surprise. Are you not pleased, Massimo?”

  THUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

  “Yes, Eminence.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “I am overwhelmed.”

  “Very well. Now, attend me closely. You are authorized to say, on behalf of the Holy See, that should this abominable bill of ‘Transitioning’ become the law in America, the holy father will issue a bull of excommunication—to any American Catholic who supports it. Do you understand?”

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONGTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

  “I think they are installing the bell of your new chapel. I must go. Good-bye, Massimo. God be with you.”

  “Good-bye, Eminence.”

  Monsignor Massimo Montefeltro slowly hung up the phone, the same phone that the head of the pro-life movement in the United States had used to telephone an escort service, one of whose employees was at this moment trying to kick in the front door. And now the pope in Rome himself had just issued instructions to the monsignor, whose phone number and—better yet—face were familiar to several employees of the escort service, to appear on every television screen in the country . . .in order to express moral indignation.

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

  Across Rock Creek and a mile down Pennsylvania Avenue, another phone was ringing just as Monsignor Montefeltro was hanging his up.

  Bucky Trumble sat forlornly at his desk, contemplating the pink bottle of Pepto-Bismol. His stomach was a Vesuvius of churning gastric juices. He was certain that ulcers were forming.

  “Mr. Trumble,” his secretary said, “it’s Mr. Cohane calling.”

  Bucky took another slug of pink liquid and picked up the phone.

  “What do you want?”

  “You don’t sound very happy to hear from me.”


  “Are you getting the right sound level for your tape recorder? Want me to count to ten? One, two, three—”

  “Ah, come on, Bucky boy. Don’t play the debutante with me. You White House guys invented taping!”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Isn’t it nice not having to do all the bullshit? Now you can be honest with me. You don’t have to kiss my ass, don’t have to tell me, ‘Oh, Frank, I just spoke to the president and he has you in mind for a significant cabinet role in the next administration.’ Although come to think of it, you actually do have to kiss my ass. And that’s what I’m calling about.”

  “What part of your ass needs kissing today, Frank?”

  “All of it! I want in.”

  “In what?”

  “The campaign. The inner circle. No more Mickey Mouse ‘Owl inner circle’ bullshit and those phony ‘issue briefings by top officials.’ That’s for amateurs. I want to be in the room with you and the Man when the big decisions are made.”

  “Is that all?” Bucky said mildly. “No air strikes or missile launches? Your own personal CIA daily briefer?”

  “For the time being. After we win, I’ll want quite a bit more. Starting with the Treasury Department.”

  “Why don’t we just send you the money instead?”

  “That’s funny, Bucky. I’m really, really laughing. Do you do stand-up on the side?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Frank. You’re just another billionaire. According to Forbes, there are 371 of you out there.”

  “Yeah, I saw. But this billionaire’s got you by the short ones, Bucky boy. And I’m about to give a good yank. Feel that? Want another?”

  “You’re damaged goods, Frank. That Yale thing—bribing an Ivy League university not to flunk out your son? How do you think that would play at your Senate confirmation hearing?”

  “Stepson. And who gives a shit? And who’s going to prove it was a bribe? You think Yale is going to come forward and say, ‘Sure we take bribes’? So I’m generous. That’s a matter of record. I give away tons of money. I give you money. I’ve just in the last week made significant donations to a number of Ivy League universities. You know what they say: Money’s like manure. Pile it up in one place . . .So don’t you worry about my Yale problem. That story got no legs. But nice try.”

  Bucky said, “I can’t just wave a wand and make you head of the campaign.”

  “Well, if I were you, Bucky boy, I’d start waving something—your dick, if it’ll do the trick. Otherwise you’re going to be reading a transcript of yourself telling me to hack into my daughter’s laptop and plant fraudulent, incriminating e-mails linking her to a serial murderer. Now, that would be a story with legs.”

  “I’ll do what I can. But I don’t know if he’ll go for it.”

  “Sure he will. Here’s what you tell him. Tell him exactly what I want. Up front. Tell him I want to be his secretary of the Treasury in the second term, and to that end, I will raise so much money for him during the campaign, you’ll be able to buy every minute of TV airtime between now and the election. If you can’t sell that, you’re in the wrong job.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Good-bye, Frank. And Frank?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Fuck you. . ..?You’re right. It does feel good.”

  Bucky hung up feeling oddly liberated. It was so seldom in politics one could be so frank.

  Cass was wrangling volunteers.

  She’d managed to find a few dozen sixty-something Baby Boomers who were willing to volunteer for Transitioning—though not until age seventy-five. Moreover, in return for their selfless acts of economic patriotism, they were demanding not only tax benefits well beyond the parameters of Cass’s original Transitioning plan, but also subsidized burial, mausoleums, full college tuition for their children, and retroactive medical payments going back to age twenty-one. Cass estimated that the aggregate economic impact of their Transitioning to the U.S. Treasury would be a negative $65 billion. (She would not emphasize this fact when they testified before the commission.)

  “Where’d you find these people? Pyongyang?” Randy asked grouchily, looking over her list while plunging his chopsticks into a container of crispy shredded beef. He was generally grumpy with Cass and with Terry these days, owing to their North Korean golf tournament scheme. Oddly, the FBI, for whatever reason, hadn’t come around to grill them further. And so far it hadn’t leaked to the media. Allen Snyder was clearly worth well more than $700 an hour. Randy sniffed, “I imagine you’d find a lot of people in North Korea willing to sign up for Transitioning. At any age.”

  “Since you ask,” Cass said, “it wasn’t easy. In fact, it’s quite hard finding people of your generation willing to do something altruistic for their country.”

  “Altruistic?” Terry said, nearly spewing his hot-and-sour soup. “That’s a laugh. I bet half of these volunteers you found are on eBay right now, seeing how much they could get for their body parts.”

  “Your generation,” Cass said to Terry and Randy. “Not mine.”

  Terry looked up from his Chiang Kai-shek chicken. “I suppose yours would do the right thing? Dream on. Every generation thinks it’s the most put upon in history. You’ve got your panties in a twist fretting about the deficit. My generation had real crises.”

  “Oh, please,” Cass said. “Here it comes. Where were you when JFK was shot? If I hear one more Baby Boomer tell me, in mind-numbing detail, I think I’ll throw up.”

  “I was in eighth grade,” Randy said. “We’d just come back from gym and—”

  Cass said, “Prosecution rests.”

  “It was a big deal,” Randy said. “What does your generation have to match it? The day Paris Hilton’s Sidekick was stolen?”

  “Why is your generation so obsessed with itself?” Cass said. “You don’t think it was just as traumatic for all concerned when FDR died? After four years of a devastating world war?”

  “Who’s FDR?” Terry said, winking at Randy.

  “Sorry,” Cass said, not rising to the bait. “I forgot that Boomers don’t care about anything that happened before 1946.”

  Terry said, “That’s right. We were too busy dealing with one disaster after another. JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, Vietnam—”

  “Vietnam . . .remind me, was that the war that eighty percent of your generation dodged?”

  “It wasn’t a very good war.”

  “You were waiting for a better one to come along.”

  “Still am,” Randy said.

  Terry said, “Then there was Watergate—”

  “Right. That would be the event that disillusioned you poor Baby Boomers. What a shock it must have been. Here you’d been brought up to believe that sort of thing had never gone on.”

  “Inflation, the gas crisis . . .For your information, Miss Righteous Indignation, I spent most of the 1970s siphoning gas out of neighbors’ lawn mowers for my car.”

  “Well, let’s award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Terry Tucker.”

  “I hate to interrupt such a splendid jeremiad,” Randy said, “but Mitch Glint of ABBA called me today. He wants to make a statement at the next commission meeting.”

  “What does he want?” Cass said.

  “He just wants to make a little, you know, statement.”

  “Let me guess. The Boomer Manifesto? What else do they want that you haven’t already given them? Toaster ovens? wall clocks? kitchen knives? Maybe 24/7 erectile dysfunction patches?”

  Randy pursed his lips. “He mentioned something about a . . .he’s got this notion for a . . .”

  “Just spit it out,” Cass said. “I’m beyond surprise at this point. Or dismay.”

  “Well, it’s sort of a . . .an Arlington Cemetery, for Transitioners.”

  Cass stared. “They want their own cemetery? And where would this field of honor go? No, wait, don’t tell me—here in Washington, on the Mall. Why not? We could tear down the Lincoln Memorial and put it there. What’s Lincoln done l
ately, anyway?”

  “I don’t think they particularly care where it goes. Look, if it gets the most powerful Boomer lobby to come aboard and endorse Transitioning, what’s the big deal? Politics is negotiation. You have to give to get.”

  “Why don’t you just offer to have every member of the Boomer generation cryogenically frozen—send the bill to my generation—and brought back to life once all diseases and global warming have been eliminated and there’s peace in the Middle East? Haven’t the Boomers suffered enough?”

  “Hm,” Randy said. “Not bad.”

  “You can make it the centerpiece of your vice presidential campaign.”

  “Where are you going?” Randy said.

  “To find a BMW and slash its tires,” Cass said.

  The final session of the Presidential Commission on Transitioning and Tax Alleviation was called to order.

  Gideon Payne appeared with a large bandage over his head and dark glasses. He looked like the Invisible Man. He was terrified that the Russian hookers to whom (he thought) he had given his precious watch would see him on TV and recognize him. His appearance naturally caused a stir. He explained that he’d had laser surgery for his eyes and while recuperating had fallen down the stairs.

  “I assure you,” he told reporters, “that my insides work just fine.” They were licking their chops in anticipation of a final smackdown between him and his adversary, Joan of Dark.

  They were disappointed, therefore, when Cass, entering the chamber and seeing her adversary in this condition, went over to him. They couldn’t hear the exchange.

  “Reverend,” she said, “what happened? Are you all right?”

  Gideon, taken aback by her softness and evident concern, mumbled, “Uh, yes. An accident.”

  “I’m sorry. Will you be all right?”

  “Oh yes. Yes. Just healing.”

  “I haven’t been very nice to you.”

  Gideon didn’t know what to say to that. He held his breath. He could smell her perfume.

  “But then,” Cass said, “you haven’t been very nice to me, either.”

  Gideon cleared his throat. She was so beautiful. He could only croak, “Ah, no, I suppose . . .not. We got off to a bad start.”