The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria

O’Connor’s reverie was shattered by a horn blast and a slap of wind from a semi trailer passing angrily on the right. O’Connor was crawling because of the thick snow. He moved to the right lane.

Arriving in Columbia an hour late, he climbed the stairs of the dreary motel and knocked four times. The door cracked open. “Maytag.” O’Connor recited the agreed code word, feeling silly. The door opened wider. He entered the sterile space and spoke to the man closing the door behind him. “Sorry I’m late. You are . . .?”

“Danner. Semper Fi, Skipper.” O’Connor saw the Marine NCO in Buck Danner’s direct gaze, brushcut and thick neck.

“And this strange man here is my old pal from Langley?” O’Connor was astonished to see the revised Doug Nachtigal, with his bald head, trim beard and slightly altered face. As they shook hands, O’Connor saw his friend in the shy smile and tilt of the head.

“Shag, Do I shock you?” Nachtigal asked. The drawl was familiar. “I’m so glad to see you. Sit here. Coffee?” Nachtigal quickly came to the point. “Thank you for driving here through this crappy weather. I asked for this meeting, so let me start. We have two hours, then we should leave. You all have to drive back in this snow.”

“I can stay here in town. The Missouri Law School dean is a good friend.”

“Well, no, let’s not do that. No footprints.” They sat with their coffees. “So, I read your op-ed pieces about Justice Vincent Dellamaria’s political decision-making? I remembered you all were college roommates. So you wrote that he made a big shift to the right after he joined the Supreme Court?”

“That’s right,” O’Connor said.

“I have input on that. You’re not going to like it.” O’Connor nodded and Nachtigal continued. “When I was in Washington in late 2000 after the contested election, I was the vice president-elect’s CIA briefer. I was tight with him and his staff. And some guy from Justice named Park and an FBI agent named Haas.”

“I’ve heard of the people. Maybe not the FBI guy.”

“Yeah, Derek Haas. Good man. The VP ruled the world back then. His lawyer Henry Heinz told me they were going to nominate this judge from New York when a Supreme Court seat opened up. They heard he had done stupid things in his youth, and Heinz wanted my help digging up dirt. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. Mistake number one.”

“What stupid things, do you know?” O’Connor asked.

“So real quick after the inauguration, that older justice resigned and the VP asked me to run up to Queens to interview an old man who was kind of a mentor to Dellamaria, name was Nicholas Spilatro. Had a bad heart and couldn’t travel. Spilatro told me when Dellamaria was with the Queens D.A., he patronized a whorehouse. Then he made his career by prosecuting that same whorehouse, which was part of a global sex empire. Spilatro said Dellamaria gave the cops a pass in that case, and he also fixed traffic tickets a few times. I wrote that up for Heinz, thinking it would all get into the FBI file. There was also a rumor from college that Dellamaria got a girl pregnant and she had an abortion which he knew about.”

O’Connor put his hand up. “I know most of that stuff. How did they get the abortion story?”

“We . . . they have their ways and means.”

“So how come none of this got to the Judiciary Committee?”

“Good question. Haas was the lead FBI guy. He and I were reassigned out of there before the nomination went to Committee, but I figured out later they cleaned up his FBI file. I assume that was part of the deal.”

“The deal? What deal?” O’Connor had a feeling something awful was coming.

“Yeah. There was a deal, Shag, an explicit agreement. This is why I had to meet with you. It was: we nominate you, Mr. Dellamaria, manage your hearings, get you confirmed – and you all follow our lead on the big social cases.”