by Stuart Woods
Tom spoke up. “Somebody’s wife.”
“Oh, shit,” Kitty moaned.
The telephone rang, and Tom picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Oh, yes, how are you? Oh, I’m sorry to hear it. Yes, we’ll wait for your call. Thank you.” He hung up. “That was Rosalynn Carter. The President has asked Jimmy to come to Washington for some sort of meeting. He has to leave immediately. He’ll call us when he gets back.” Tom collapsed into his chair.
“Well,” Kitty said, “word is getting around.”
When they had gone, Will stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. What next? What else could possibly happen to him? He didn’t understand. Who could possibly have known they would end up in bed together? He hadn’t even known himself. He thought for a minute. There was only one person who could have known, who could have planned the event, including the pictures.
Charlene.
28
It was ironic, Will thought, that his entire Saturday was scheduled for Columbus, a city where polling had suggested that he could gain ground with personal appearances; also a city where his political fate could be sealed on the following day.
It surprised him that he was not depressed. He went about his campaigning like a man enjoying his last day on earth, starting with a country ham-and-grits breakfast with a hundred people in a supporter’s backyard; he continued to a shopping mall for a speech and a round of the shops, shaking hands, with a local TV news crew tagging along; that afternoon, he visited a Little League championship game, just in time for a few words to the crowd during the seventh-inning stretch, then another shopping mall on the black side of town. In the early evening, he spoke on defense policy at the American Legion state convention, then, later, wound up with the taping of an interview by the anchorman of a local television station, to be shown the following afternoon.
The interview ran to form, with no questions of an unusual nature, until the last. With a minute remaining, the interviewer asked, “Mr. Lee, there are rumors that one of our local newspapers, the Columbus Beacon, is running a front-page story tomorrow morning that might change the course of the campaign. Can you tell us anything about that?”
Will affected mild surprise. “I’m afraid I’m no better informed than you are. I guess we’ll both have to go out and buy a paper.”
The man thanked him and closed the program.
Will got into a car with Tom Black and Kitty Conroy outside the station.
“That’s it,” Tom said. “We’d better all get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” There did not seem to be any irony in his voice.
“I’m not bushed yet,” Will said. “Let’s go on back to Atlanta. I’d just as soon wake up there.”
“We’ve already got rooms booked here. Are you sure you aren’t too tired to fly?”
“I’m fine,” Will said. “I must be getting used to this.”
Tom turned the car around and pointed it toward the airport.
Although there were still two more days of campaigning to go, Will felt, somehow, that the campaign had ended that night. And well it might have, depending on what the Columbus Beacon had to say the following morning. He had shut out all thought of what might happen. He supposed he should have been planning as best he could for the eventuality, but he felt removed from the dangers of tomorrow. He still had the feeling, no doubt irrational, that, in spite of all that had occurred so far, nothing so terrible could possibly happen to him.
At the airport, Tom dropped them at Will’s airplane, then went to return the rental car. Will got a weather forecast and filed a flight plan, then performed his preflight inspection of the aircraft.
As he and Kitty climbed into the airplane, Kitty looked around. “Where’s Tom? He’s taking an awfully long time getting rid of the car.”
Will looked toward the little terminal building and saw Tom standing under a streetlight in front of the building, looking expectantly up the street.
“What’s he doing?” Kitty wondered.
As she asked the question, it was answered. From up the street came a large truck, which came to a halt in front of the terminal. Painted on the side of the vehicle in large letters were the words COLUMBUS BEACON DAILY AND SUNDAY. The driver got out, hefted a bundle of papers from the back of the truck, and began filling the coin-operated dispensing machines in front of the terminal building. Tom was digging into his pocket for change. Shortly, he was walking toward the airplane, a paper under his arm.
Will’s bowels shrank as a condemned man’s might at the first sight of his firing squad. Here it came; it could no longer be avoided. There was nothing but trouble ahead—first, public humiliation and the loss of the election, followed by disbarment and disgrace. He would move to Ireland. The family still had his grandfather’s property there. He could farm the place and spend his evenings reading. Nobody there would know or care what he had done to himself in America.
Tom got into the airplane. “How about some light?” he said.
Will reached up and switched on the cabin light.
Tom spread the front page for them all to see. A large black headline read GOVERNOR IN LOVE NEST WITH ANCHORLADY.
“What?” Kitty said weakly.
Will closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the seat. “Read it to us, Tom,” he said.
Tom read:
Exclusive to the Beacon, by Huel Hardaway. Earlier this week, this reporter came into possession of photographs taken by a private detective employed by Mrs. Louise Dean, wife of Governor Mack Dean, of her husband in intimate circumstances with Ms. Shirley Scott, anchor of Atlanta’s Channel Six News. After verifying the authenticity of the photographs and tracking down the detective, this reporter was able, with the permission of Mrs. Dean, to get his story. Ernest Jenkins, a licensed private investigator of Atlanta, established a surveillance last weekend of Shirley Scott, thirty-seven, a well-known Atlanta television journalist. On Sunday evening, he followed her to a farm in Gwinnett County, north of Atlanta, a property owned by the Governor of the state, Mack Dean, sixty-one. There, he observed the Governor greeting Ms. Scott affectionately at the door of a guest cottage.
The photographs clearly show Governor Dean and Ms. Scott on a bed, nude, performing a variety of acts of sexual intercourse, including, but not limited to, coitus.
Mrs. Louise Dean, the Governor’s second wife, has been married to him for the past nine years. The Governor was divorced from his first wife eleven years ago amid unconfirmed rumors of an affair with the current Mrs. Dean. Mrs. Dean, reached by telephone at the Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta, said, “I have suspected my husband and this woman of carrying on an affair for some time now, and Mr. Jenkins’s photographs and tape recording have confirmed my suspicions. I will be filing for divorce on grounds of adultery Monday morning at ten o’clock at the Fulton County Courthouse.” Mrs. Dean added that she will hold a news conference at that time.
Governor Dean, reached at press time and asked to comment on the evidence and his wife’s statement, would only say, “I have nothing to say at this time. I am sure that the true facts will become known as time progresses. I would just like to assure the people of Georgia that I have never done anything, publicly or privately, which would bring disrepute upon the office I hold or upon this great state.”
Ms. Scott, reached at her North Atlanta condominium, and advised of the evidence by this reporter, would only say, “You son of a bitch.”
Tom put down the newspaper and looked at Kitty. They both burst into laughter.
“That’s telling him, Shirley!” Kitty crowed. “I’m amazed he printed her response.”
“It was too good a line to pass up,” Tom howled. “Jesus, Will, why didn’t you tell us they had nothing on you?”
Will raised his head weakly from the back of the seat. “Would you have believed me?”
“Probably not,” Tom laughed. “God, I never had such an awful day as today.”
“Me neither,” Kitty said. “No
t as bad a day as Mack Dean, though.”
“Poor old Mack,” Will sighed.
“Don’t waste your sympathy,” Tom said. “He got exactly what he deserved.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t think anybody deserves that. God, his wife must really hate him.”
“A woman scorned,” Kitty said. “Let that be a lesson to the both of you.”
“Well, I think we can stop worrying about the primary,” Tom said. “As close as we’ve been in the polls, the wronged-woman vote alone would put us over the top.”
Will started the engine and looked at his checklist. “There are still two days to go before the primary,” he said over the intercom. “I would have thought that if we have learned anything at all in this campaign, it is that anything can happen.”
All the way to Atlanta, the silence was broken only by Will’s occasional words to air-traffic control.
29
Harold Perkerson sat in the dark and waited. The stars had disappeared, but the sun had not yet risen. The warm, moist air promised a hot and muggy day, normal for a September Tuesday in Georgia.
He fingered a thick, elongated canvas tube that rested on his knees. Hand-stitched and filled with sand, it weighed perhaps two pounds.
As the light came up, he stood and stretched his body, paying particular attention to his legs. He was not a regular runner, and although he had jogged a mile or so for the past few mornings, he did not want to run the risk of a pulled muscle. He slapped the canvas tube into the palm of his other hand; there was a dull thud, nothing more. It was a quiet instrument. He felt in a pocket of his sweat jacket for another implement, took it out, examined its contents, replaced it. He felt in the other pocket for the rubber tubing.
Perkerson walked through the woods toward the road, careful not to be seen. Finally, he stationed himself behind a large oak, ten yards from where the road curved sharply, and waited. Seven or eight minutes passed. Perkerson glanced at his watch: just past six; he hoped his man would be on time. As if to make a point, the jogger appeared a hundred yards down the road. Perkerson looked just long enough to form an impression. Tallish, slim, not unlike himself; thinning gray hair, glasses, tanned skin: the picture of a healthy, fit man in his fifties. Perkerson moved behind the tree, put on his dark glasses, pulled up the hood of the sweat jacket, and waited for the sound of running shoes passing on the tarmac. It came soon enough.
Perkerson counted to five, then left the shelter of the tree and made for the road. It was slower and noisier going through the last yards of woods than he imagined it would be. He hit the road running fast, afraid he would be unable to catch his man soon enough.
He came around the curve and entered a long tunnel of trees, dark and cool, with a blaze of low-angled sunlight at the far end. The man was twenty yards ahead of him, jogging along with practiced ease. Perkerson had to overtake him before the tree tunnel ended. He increased his pace, and the gap closed. The man glanced over his shoulder and gave a little wave.
The sunlight at the end of the tree tunnel loomed ahead, and Perkerson started to sprint. As he began to draw even with his target, the man half turned his head.
“Morning,” he called out. “You’re really pouring it on, aren’t you?”
“I sure am,” Perkerson replied, then swung the cosh. Not too much force, he told himself as his arm came around; let the thing do its own work. The canvas tube met the back of the man’s neck, at the base of the skull. Immediately, he became a rag doll, a limp length of flesh, falling forward, colliding harshly with the black road surface. He was unconscious before he hit the ground; he had not even had the moment it would have taken to throw his hands out to break his fall.
There would be no bruising at the back of the neck, and unconsciousness would last only a short time. Perkerson, breathing hard and working fast, knelt beside the still figure, took a length of rubber surgical tubing from a pocket, wound it around the man’s left leg above the knee, and tied it off. He pulled up the leg of the running suit, slapped the bare skin smartly at the back of the knee, and watched the vein come up. He took a disposable syringe from his other pocket, removed the protective cap from the needle, held it up, tapped the thing so any bubbles would rise to the tip of the solution of potassium, squirted a little into the air away from the leg, then slipped the needle into the vein. He released the tied tubing and slowly emptied the syringe into the man’s bloodstream. He removed the syringe and wiped away a drop of blood with his finger and a little spit; he returned the tubing to his pocket, pulling down the trouser leg, replaced the cap on the needle, put that into his pocket, and waited. It should take only seconds. The man moaned, started to come around.
Perkerson was nervous; he didn’t want to hit him again, didn’t want to touch him. He needn’t have worried; suddenly the man emitted a loud grunt and convulsed, reflexively drawing a hand to his chest. Then, with a sigh, he relaxed and seemed to melt into the tarmac. It was over, as quickly as that.
There was a noise from somewhere. Perkerson looked over his shoulder, but before he could move, a car swung around the curve and came toward him through the tree tunnel. Perkerson turned back to the dead jogger, turned him over, and put an ear to his chest. The car screeched to a halt next to him.
“What happened?” a man shouted from the car.
“I don’t know,” Perkerson shouted back, not turning his head. “I saw him grab his chest and fall; he must have had a heart attack. Do you know CPR?”
The car door slammed, and the driver knelt beside the body. He felt for a pulse at the man’s neck, then struck him sharply twice in the chest. “Yes,” he said, “I do. Take my car, and call an ambulance.” He turned the man’s face to him and started to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Perkerson ran around the car, the engine of which was still running, leapt in, and drove away, fast. He emerged from the tree tunnel into bright sunlight, rounded a curve, and came to a convenience store; a phone booth stood outside it. He whipped into the deserted parking lot, found some change, and dialed 911.
“Emergency,” a voice said. “Which service do you need?”
“Ambulance.” A click.
“Ambulance services.”
“A jogger is down, suspected heart attack, Northside Drive, just outside the Perimeter; need an ambulance at once. Got that?”
“Yes, but I need some more information.”
Perkerson hung up the phone, looked around him, then loped off into the woods, back toward where he had left his car.
30
Will woke slowly, disoriented at first, unaccustomed to his own bed in the cottage at the Delano farm. The morning was his; the phone was shut off, Tom and Kitty were in Atlanta. It was over. There was nothing more he could do.
He sat up and groaned. He was still tired; his whole body was sore; his right hand was swollen and tender from shaking hundreds of hands, and his arm ached right up to the shoulder. He felt old and arthritic.
Ten minutes under a hot shower restored something like normal movement, and by the time he had opened the morning papers he was nearly awake.
Louise Dean, brunette, a carefully preserved forty-five, smiled bravely at him from the front page of the Atlanta Constitution. She stood, the Fulton County Courthouse rising behind her, a forest of microphones rising before her, cheerfully applying the finishing touches to the destruction of her husband’s political career. Will had seen it on TV, sandwiched between two of the twenty-five campaign appearances he had made the previous day. She had stood there, telling the entire state of Georgia and most of the rest of the country, of her husband’s infidelity over the years, of his weakness for the bottle, and of his personal and political incompetence. For one brief moment of panic, Will had thought she was going to endorse her husband’s opponent. He had prayed that she would end her news conference without uttering his name and she had, finally flouncing off into the courthouse, smug with satisfaction over her morning’s work.
Bright and early Monday m
orning, a tabloid newspaper had appeared at every supermarket in the state and country, featuring well-taken photographs of Mack Dean and Shirley Scott in the throes, with little black bars covering strategic places.
On Monday’s noon news, the president of Channel 6 had announced, having ascertained from a recalcitrant Shirley Scott that her affair with Mack Dean had extended back in time at least as far as his television debate with Will Lee, that Ms. Scott had involuntarily left the employ of the station, indeed had left town, taking advantage of accumulated vacation time.
Mack Dean himself was holed up in a suite at the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, and the operators were not putting through any calls. Nobody had seen him since Saturday night except the room-service waiters, who were talking freely to television cameras in their spare time. Old Mack, they all agreed, was drunk as a skunk.
And now Dean’s opponent sat alone in the cottage by the lake, a half-eaten bowl of cereal congealing before him, leafing listlessly through the papers, the primary victory all but his, and nothing between him and a seat in the United States Senate but a lackluster Republican opponent with a slight stammer and not much money. To Will, on this hot September morning, it did not seem possible.
Later in the morning, he shaved and dressed for what would be his only public appearance that day, until the election had been decided. Glancing frequently at his watch, Will drove into town, pulling up, as previously arranged by Kitty Conroy with nearly every television station in the state, at precisely ten minutes past twelve, in order to make the noon news, live. As he got out of the car, six—he counted them—television cameras and their attached correspondents rushed at him. He had been expecting only one, the pool camera; it seemed a terrible waste of men and equipment, he thought, just to cover the candidate entering the polling place to vote.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, beaming at them. “Or is it afternoon? I slept late.” The reporters, to his surprise, looked momentarily taken aback.
“Mr. Lee,” said a young woman, thrusting her microphone into his face.
Will was ready for a question about Mack Dean’s predicament, on which he did not plan to comment.
