No Way to Treat a First Lady A Novel

Chapter 1 His secretary announced simply, "It's her." There was no ambiguity as to who "her" might be, not after the force twelve media storm of the previous weeks. The country was convulsed. Seven-eighths of the nation's front pages and the evening news was devoted to it. If war had broken out with Russia and China, it might have made page two. "Shameless" Baylor had spent much of the previous seventeen days wondering if Beth MacMann would have the balls to call him. He was, at age not quite fifty, the top trial attorney in the country. He had been the first lawyer to charge $1,000 per hour, whichfor too longhad been considered the unbreakable sound barrier of legal billing. There were half a dozen second-best trial attorneys each of whom, naturally, considered him- or herself the top trial attorney in the country. But none of them had been simultaneously on the covers of all three weekly newsmagazines, none had been portrayed in movies by a famous British actor pretending to be American. None owned a professional baseball team. And, to be sure, none had been married and divorced four times. The previous record had stood at three. That he had any assets left after such serial marital wreckage was perhaps the greatest testament to his courtroom skills. He hadn't been baptized "Shameless." In fact, up to the moment he set out to become the best trial attorney in the country he had been the soul of decency, what used to go by the name of "Christian gentleman," a veritable poster boy for all that is good and sunny in human nature. His real name was Boyce, and at his baptism, his godparents firmly rejected Satan on his behalf. The rejection lasted until an event that occurred to him just before he graduated from law school. The nickname had been given to him by a federal judge early in Boyce's controversial career, after he had persuaded a jury that his client, the Cap'n Bob Fast Fish Restaurant chain, was unaware that its popular Neptune Burgers were made from black market Japanese whale meat. Since that stunning victory, Boyce had successfully defended traitors, terrorists, inside traders, politicians, mobsters, blackmailers, polluters, toxic-waste dumpers, cheats, insurance frauds, drug dealers, horse dopers, televangelists, hucksters, society wife batterers, cybermonopolists, and even fellow lawyers. An eminent legal scholar who wore bow ties commented on public television that if Shameless Baylor had defended Adolf Eichmann after he had been kidnapped and brought to Israel and tried for crimes against humanity, Eichmann would have been not only acquitted, but awarded damages. It was not said admiringly. But if Boyce's fame had long since reached the point where shoeshine men in airports asked for his autograph, the public was largely unaware of the actual motivation for his remarkable career. And nowa quarter century after his career beganhis phone rang. He reached for the button, then paused. He thought of telling the secretary to tell her to call back. Sometimes he put new clients through a ten- or fifteen-minute wait before picking up. Softened them up. Made them all the more eager. Should he, to her? No. He had waited twenty-five years. He was too impatient to begin this beguine. He felt the kettledrum in his chest. Good Lord. Was his pulse actually quickening? He, who never broke a sweat, even while arguing before the Supreme Court? He picked up. "Hello, Beth. What've you been up to?" This was nonchalance carried to operatic heights. "I need to see you, Boyce." Her voice was all business. Cool as a martini, no more emotion than a flight attendant telling the pasBuckley, Christopher is the author of 'No Way to Treat a First Lady A Novel' with ISBN 9780375507342 and ISBN 0375507345.