Wry Martinis Read online

  One correspondent of ours says that’s how he introduces himself to the waiters. The downside is that many of them forget to introduce themselves to him. But service, he reports, is usually quite brisk.

  That said, Bon appétit, and remember: developing a relationship with the person who brings you your food lessens the chance that he or she will spit on it in the kitchen.

  —Key West Restaurant, 1986

  * When introducing oneself, always shake hands to your right. When bidding the waiter good-bye, to your left. In some Middle Eastern countries, it may be advisable to forgo the handshake altogether in favor of a simple denunciation of United States policy toward Israel.

  You,

  the Jury!

  Interactive TV Movie of the Week: Beauty and the Juice. Menu of Alternative Endings. Make Selection, Then Press Number of Desired Ending.

  1. O. J. pretends to have a heart attack in the courtroom. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he overpowers his guards and leads the LAPD, the National Guard, the United States Air Force, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard on a harrowing chase into Mexico, where he claims political asylum. The Mexican government, still angry with the United States for stealing California in 1848, refuses to extradite him. In retaliation, the United States withdraws from the North American Free Trade Agreement. O. J. becomes a greeter at the El Conquistador Hotel in Acapulco. Business there quadruples.

  2. After pleading their client not guilty by reason of insanity, the defense attorneys Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, and Alan Dershowitz argue that the “admittedly unfortunate events” were actually all the fault of Nicole Simpson. “Who paid for that house?” Shapiro asks movingly in his summation. “Who paid for that Ferrari? I put it to you—if you came home and found your ex-wife thanking a man who had appeared on the television show Studs for returning a pair of her mother’s eyeglasses, wouldn’t you go a little nuts?”

  3. O. J. is found guilty on two counts of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. But as the cyanide pellets drop inside the San Quentin gas chamber, the phone rings. It’s the governor, ordering a halt to the execution. The police have just found a suicide note on the Golden Gate Bridge, signed by Al Cowlings, Simpson’s longtime friend and sometime chauffeur. After thanking a hundred and twenty-four golfing buddies, Cowlings says that it was he who committed the murders, in an attempt to frame O. J. in revenge for O. J.’s having married his girlfriend many years ago. L. A. District Attorney Gil Garcetti sends O. J. a handwritten letter of apology, saying, “I never thought you did it, man.” O. J., through a spokesman, replies, “Hey, no sweat,” and asks Garcetti to be his partner in the Pebble Beach National Pro Am.

  4. As word of O. J. Simpson’s acquittal spreads throughout Beverly Hills, angry crowds of expensively dressed white people overturn gelato venders’ carts and set fire to Cartier. The fire spreads to Tiffany and Chanel. People without lunch reservations storm the front door of Morton’s and threaten the maître d’ with physical violence if they are not immediately seated. Governor Wilson appeals for manners. Letitia Baldrige is brought in by armored riot vehicle and exhorts the crowds with a bullhorn, “Remember where you are!”

  5. At the conclusion of the fourteen-month-long “preliminary hearing,” Judge Kennedy-Powell determines that it would be impossible to impanel a jury that hasn’t already arrived at a verdict, and orders that the trial be held in Guam. Prosecutor Marcia Clark vociferously objects to the change of venue, saying that she looks “ridiculous” in a mestiza, the traditional Guamanian attire. The judge sternly informs her that she is under no obligation whatsoever to wear Guamanian garb. O. J., extremely popular with Guamanians, is acquitted by an all-male jury after a two-hour-long trial. The jury foreman tells the press afterward that the jury might have voted to convict if Clark had worn a mestiza.

  6. The legal battle of the century heads for the highest court in the land: Bailey v. Dershowitz. Bailey is livid with Dershowitz for calling him, in his best-selling book, Can’t Get Enough of Me, a “washed-up, publicity-mongering limousine-chaser who couldn’t get Mother Teresa off on a shoplifting charge.” Bailey has retaliated in his book, The “F” Stands for Fabulous, by calling Dershowitz a “short, four-eyed Harvard hairball who cares about only one thing—gross participation in movie deals.” After many exciting motions and countermotions, the Supreme Court decides not to hear the case. In a joint press conference brokered by superagent Michael Ovitz, Bailey and Dershowitz declare, “Sadly, brilliant lawyers can no longer get justice in America,” and announce plans for a miniseries about their reconciliation.

  —The New Yorker, 1994

  Apartment

  Hunter

  O. J. Simpson is considering moving from his posh estate in

  the Brentwood section of Los Angeles to New York City.

  —New York Post

  TO THE 1040 FIFTH AVENUE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION:

  I am pleased to write in support of Mr. Simpson’s application to become a member of your cooperative.

  I have known Mr. Simpson for many years. I would describe him as a devoted family man. As you may be aware, he has recently suffered the devastating loss of his former wife, to whom he was very close. But he is strong and his attitude is “Life must go on.”

  Initially, his plan was to return to his home and raise his children according to his own strong sense of family values. But the crime problem in Brentwood persuades him that it is time to look elsewhere, and so he has decided to move with the children to New York, where they can have a “normal” upbringing.

  Sincerely,

  Robert Kardashian

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GOOD MORNING!

  O. J. Simpson will make an excellent tenant in your building. I can truthfully say I know him intimately, having spent a lot of time with him recently. He is a godly man who has suffered bitterly at the hands of the unrighteous. His only desire right now, apart from seeing that the Colombian drug dealers who slew his ex-wife and her companion are brought to justice, is to raise his children in an atmosphere of serenity and security.

  I understand that the late Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, another parent of two young children left bereft by a senseless act of violence, lived in your building, so you are familiar with these tragedies, and the need to be sensitive and sympathetic to the victims.

  In the matter of finances, I can say without fear of contradiction that Mr. Simpson will be more than able to meet the necessary requirements. His financial future shines brightly indeed!

  Sincerely,

  Johnnie Cochran

  TO THE BOARD:

  O. J. Simpson will make an ideal tenant, and you should move expeditiously to approve his application.

  Aside from the reflected glory that all your tenants would share in having a tenant of his stature, there is an additional benefit—my own occasional presence in the building. As you know, it was I who masterminded his entire defense strategy, despite the fact that my esteemed colleague Mr. Cochran seems to be crowding the limelight. My only point is that I am the most brilliant legal mind in the United States, and my occasional visits to the Simpson duplex at 1040 would lend great respectability to all of you.

  Another of my clients, Mr. Claus von Bülow, lived on Fifth Avenue, and my visits to his apartment brought considerable social stature to his cotenants.

  I should add that in the event you turn down Mr. Simpson’s application I will be handling the appeal. The upside for you would be spending many, many hours in my presence. The downside would be legal fees that will force you to send your children to public schools.

  Sincerely,

  Alan Dershowitz

  THIS IS A.C.:

  He’s got a gun to his head. You better let him come live in your building. Be cool with this. He just wants to chill out. Everyone needs to chill out here.

  Do you have a parking garage? Also, what is the freeway situation in New York in case we need to go for a quick cruise?

  Sincerely, />
  Al (A. C.) Cowlings

  DEAR MR. SIMPSON:

  The Cooperative Association has met to discuss your application. We reviewed the many strong letters of recommendation submitted by your friends and associates.

  After almost four hours of deliberation, the board unanimously voted “Not Approved.” Let me hasten to say that this decision had nothing whatsoever to do with race, or the notoriety surrounding the recent unfortunate events. It was simply that the board, recalling your statements regarding your activities on the night of June 12, 1994, took note of your predilection for nocturnal golfing on the premises.

  The board felt rather strongly that nocturnal golfing is inappropriate in a Fifth Avenue duplex, and therefore decided to pass on your application, with the keenest regret.

  Sincerely,

  1040 Fifth Avenue

  Cooperative Association

  —The New Yorker, 1995

  Hillary Pilloried

  February 2: Barbara Feinman is called to testify before the Senate Whitewater Committee as to whether she saw the Rose Law Firm documents on the third floor of the White House. Feinman collaborated with Hillary Rodham Clinton on her book, It Takes a Village, but received no acknowledgment from the First Lady. She tells the senators that she did not see the subpoenaed billing records but “did find Mrs. Clinton’s habit of chewing computer printouts into little balls and swallowing them a bit peculiar.” Mrs. Clinton explained to her, she said, that it was “a new high-fiber diet” she was trying.

  February 13: The Washington Times prints a leaked extract from Hillary Clinton’s January 26th grand-jury testimony:

  MR. STARR: When did you last see the documents?

  MRS. CLINTON: I have no recollection of that.

  MR. STARR: Is your name Hillary Rodham Clinton?

  MRS. CLINTON: I have no recollection of that.

  MR. STARR: Do you live in the White House?

  MRS. CLINTON: You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve lived in a number of white houses.

  March 12: FBI experts report that Mrs. Clinton’s fingerprints are on the documents. However, the revelation is complicated by the fact that so are O. J. Simpson’s.

  March 14: Hillary Clinton hires Johnnie Cochran.

  March 18: Cochran demands full DNA testing of documents.

  April 15: Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Whitewater Committee chairman, asks for six billion dollars to continue his investigation until the year A.D. 2021.

  May 17: While vacuuming under the First Couple’s bed, White House janitor Manuel García finds a deed to a choice waterfront plot in the name of Hillary Rodham, witnessed by Vincent Foster. Attached to the deed is a Post-it note bearing Foster’s handwriting: “If this gets out, we’re in major doo-doo.”

  May 20: Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, says of the new controversial document, “If it’s just a Post-it, we aren’t toasted.”

  August 25: On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, the White House announces that Mrs. Clinton will immediately embark on a weeklong goodwill tour of mutton ranches in New Zealand.

  August 26: Times columnist William Safire writes that Mrs. Clinton should not be permitted to leave the country.

  August 28: President Clinton issues a statement saying that if he weren’t President he’d “chop off Safire’s chestnuts and feed them to the hogs.” White House spokesman Mike McCurry later says Clinton was merely using a “colorful Southern expression indicating honest disagreement.”

  September 5: In an interview with Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift, Hillary Clinton suggests that the Rose Law Firm documents were put there “by Richard Nixon.” In a somewhat rambling explanation, she ventures that “Carolyn [Huber] first found the documents in August. The same month Nixon resigned.” Nixon’s own secretary was Rose Mary Woods. “Rose Mary Woods, Rose Law Firm, see?” “Finally,” the First Lady says, “Nixon’s never forgiven me for working on the impeachment committee back in ’74. So it all fits. I mean, right? Right?”

  September 12: First Cat Socks wanders into the East Room of the White House during a Presidential press conference and in full view of TV cameras coughs up a hairball. Upon closer examination by ABC’s Brit Hume, the hairball turns out to be a length of dictation tape. When it is played, Mrs. Clinton’s voice is heard saying to her chief of staff, Margaret Williams, “Where are the [expletive deleted] billing records you got out of Vince’s office? I had them right here. We don’t want Carolyn to find them.”

  September 13: Mrs. Clinton denies that it is her voice on the tape. Her lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, says of the evidence, “If there’s feline spit, you must acquit.”

  —The New Yorker, 1996

  Unaclíent

  Lawyers from around the nation are trying to hawk their services directly to Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski.

  —USA Today

  DEAR MR. KACZYNSKI,

  I won’t pussyfoot around: I’m the best there is, and you, my friend, are knee-deep in kimchi. Here’s how we handle it: The FBI had dozens of agents staked out around your cabin for weeks. We put each and every one of them on the stand and ask him if in the last twenty years he ever used the word “weirdo.” Let them deny it! We’ll put their fifth-grade teachers on the stand, then nail them for perjury and move to dismiss.

  I would have come up there personally, except that urgent business on behalf of a very fine client is detaining me here. But my jet is fueled and ready.

  Sincerely,

  F. Lee Bailey

  Tallahassee, Fla.

  P.S. It turns out my jet won’t be available after all. Do they have commercial flights into Helena?

  DEAR MR. KACZYNSKI,

  Greetings! Perhaps I can be of some assistance. Most important, we need to get this case moved out of Buffalo Dung, Montana, to Berkeley where we’ll get a jury of peers who won’t sit up all night drinking beers. Those people up there look as if they’d all been swimming in the same gene pool too long and someone forgot to add chlorine. Also, my Rolls-Royce would not take kindly to driving over cattle guards. As for those so-called bombs in your cabin, we’ll tell the jury “if they did not detonate, you must exonerate.”

  Sincerely,

  Johnnie Cochran

  Los Angeles, Calif.

  DEAR MR. KACZYNSKI,

  I practice law here in Wyoming and I have experience with men such as yourself, who want only to live in harmony among the elk and bear and antelope, but who wake up one morning to find that Big Brother has descended from the Big Sky.

  My client Randy Weaver went through a similar infringement of his rights in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Before I took over his case, he was looking at spending the rest of his life in a federal dungeon, cursing the darkness.

  Now he is a free man,

  And FBI Director Freeh

  Fears to arrest the Freemen.

  I wrote that. I also do some painting.

  I’m not saying it will be easy. Westerners don’t make easy promises. What they do is spit on their hands and go to work. The FBI has found material in your cabin that might lead a jury to suspect you weren’t just tinkering with new recipes for jackrabbit: specifically, bombs, trigger devices, saltpeter, sulfur, and ammonium nitrate, and also what appears to be the original draft of that manifesto they printed in the newspapers and this here piece of paper they found with the words “hit list” written above “airline industry,” “computer industry,” and “geneticists.”

  As we say in these parts, “If you got a rope around your neck, it’s no time to goose the horse.” We’ll want to be very deliberate about this and pick our own hunting ground.

  Sincerely,

  Gerry Spence

  Jackson, Wyo.

  DEAR MR. KACZYNSKI,

  I’m in the middle of the tour for my book on the O. J. Simpson case, Reasonable Doubts—it’s really excellent. Have you read it? It’s getting great reviews. I don’t want to sound defeatist, but in my opinion you’re going to need the best appeals lawyer in the
country. And, since I’m already halfway through the manuscript for the book about your appeal, you might as well hire me, right?

  Let me set you at ease. First, I would take you on without charge. The deal for the book and movie about your case, which I’ve already signed, will cover my costs.

  Second, I am not the kind of lawyer who asks his client improper questions, like “Did you try to decapitate your wife?” or “Did you pump your wife so full of insulin in the eighties that she’s still asleep in the nineties?” That’s not my role. My role is to uphold the Bill of Rights by establishing that a bailiff picked his nose during the voir dire and tainted the entire proceeding. Call me.

  Sincerely,

  Alan Dershowitz

  Cambridge, Mass.

  P.S. If you have any casting ideas for who should play you—Eastwood? Van Damme?—let me know right away. They want to move on this quickly.

  —The New Yorker, 1996

  Dépondez, Sí Vous Payez

  THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE

  IS REQUESTED AT A

  SALUTE

  TO THE CUTICLE INSTITUTE

  UNDER THE GRACIOUS PATRONAGE OF

  HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

  PRINCE BEGIN LE BEGUINE

  Ticket Prices:

  $50,000—Gala Benefactor

  1. One Table, Very Near the Prince’s. Includes a Confusing Array of Forks and Knives, and Eight Inches of Elbow Room (on Each Side).