Dark Horse

by Doug Richardson

  “Building a Web page for my campaign,” said Shakespeare. “Callin’ it ‘Shakes On-Line.’ ”

  “Campaigning through the Internet. Sounds a little broad-based for a small congressional district, don’t you think?”

  “Yup. But you never know if there’s a fellah in Decatur with ten bucks and a stamp to spend on better government.” Shakespeare grinned. “Can I getcha somethin’? Iced tea? Dr. Pepper?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” When Shakespeare dove underneath his desk to open an ice-filled cooler, Hollice caught a look at a large cork bulletin board on the wall behind the candidate, colored with three-by-five cards, each bearing an indistinguishable scrawl. “What’s that?” asked Hollice, nodding to the corkboard and cards.

  Shakespeare popped open a Dr. Pepper. “Oh, that? That’s my campaign.”

  “How’s it turn out?”

  “You gotta stay for the end of the movie to find out how it turns out,” said the candidate with a wink and that smile again. “But I’ll give you a hint. The dark-horse candidate wins.”

  “Really?” said Hollice, already amused. He’d seated himself across from the desk in a folding chair Shakespeare had fished from the broom closet. Hollice took that to mean the candidate wasn’t accustomed to visitors. He made a note and asked, “And your campaign staff? Day off?”

  “Front-office gal, she’s out to lunch. As for the rest of the staff, you’re lookin’ at him.”

  “On the phone you said you’re putting your staff together.”

  “Ain’t done yet. But November’s a long way off.”

  “Okay. So let’s talk about your campaign.”

  “What’s to know? I’m the Republican nominee,” responded Shakespeare, rocking back and forth in his leather office chair, eyes straight ahead at Hollice. “Didn’t expect to be here. Guess neither did you.”

  They shared a laugh with that one. Hollice suddenly felt sorry for the man, certain that McCann didn’t have a clue as to what he was in for. “And the dark horse wins. Your words?” he returned.

  “You can quote me on that,” said the candidate. “Got a right to be optimistic, now, don’t I?”

  “You’re free, white, and American,” tempted Hollice, seeing if McCann would bite.

  Instead, Shakespeare sat back and got himself a good look at the reporter. His eyes narrowed and hardly wavered. “You wanna bait me, don’tcha?”

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, cuz I’m the right-winger. Y’all just wanna know how far right, I reckon.”

  “Fifteen percent off of Hurricane Hammond. I don’t see much of that coming out of the middle ground.”

  “Fair enough. But when it comes to the colors of the rainbow, I’m an equal-opportunity candidate. South County, yessir. Can’t deny my own Texas dirt. As for the rest, I’m free, I’m American, but the white part was God’s doin’.”

  “Got a platform? Got a stand on anything?”

  “Sure do. But I’m afraid the sign reads, ‘Under Construction.’ ”

  “This is your interview, Mr. McCann. Folks are gonna wanna know what you stand for.”

  “For a start, let’s just say I’m the law-and-order candidate.”

  “Okay. But so is Dutton. Your opposition. At least he says so. In fact, he’s got a strong record of support for law enforcement, and they for him.”

  “So he says. But he’s anti-death penalty. You ‘n’ I both know it. To me, that ain’t law and order. That ain’t Texas.”

  “ ‘That ain’t Texas,’ ” said Hollice, amused. “I think I remember Hurricane saying that.”

  “I steal from the best. And Hurricane was the best.”

  “If he was the best, why’d you run against him?”

  “Oh, I had some things I wanted to bring to the party, so to speak. Thought I’d try my hand at the great American debate.”

  “But now that he’s gone, is that your campaign strategy—to reinvent yourself as the second coming of Hurricane Hammond?”

  “I’m not that lucky and I’m not that smart. Just like Popeye says, ‘I am what I am,’ ” retorted Shakespeare, happy with his answer and looking more like a cartoon character than a candidate.

  “Can I quote you on that?” said Hollice, leaning on every syllable of sarcasm.

  “As long as you let your readers know that I speak with grand humility,” returned the candidate.

  “Okay, all right. So let’s cut the crap.” Hollice sat forward, switching off the tape recorder. “Ain’t no love between me and your opponent. He’s the odds-on favorite and will probably kick your ass come November. Now, if I’m to be correct, your campaign isn’t even out of the gate and he’s already in the backstretch. You’re short of money. And you’re short of support, not including the South County Old Home Society, who I hear are real happy with their family portraits.”

  Shakespeare stopped rocking. The smile faded and he stared dead ahead at Hollice. “You want straight talk. I can talk straight. What’s on your mind?”

  “You need a friend,” said Hollice without so much as a blink. “I could be it.”

  “A friend in the press?” Now Shakespeare’s tone was sarcastic. “Why do I need a friend in the press? So you can build me up to tear me down? I don’t think so. Not when I got the power of the Almighty Republican party behind me.”

  “Don’t gimme that. I’ve heard they’re gonna pass you by. Save their money to put on a candidate that counts.”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Shakespeare, rocking once again in that dwarfing leather chair. “They’re behind me one hundred percent. They don’t wanna lose the seat to a lefty like Dutton.”

  Hollice stalled a moment before reaching out and restarting the tape recorder. “I find that hard to believe. I talked to Bill Ziegler just last week.” Bill Ziegler was the state Republican party chairman. A man with old ties to Cathedral and Hollice Waters.

  “What’d he tell you?” asked Shakespeare.

  “You tell me.”

  “What would you say to a canceled check for seventy-five thousand dollars?” teased Shakespeare, paying off the smile on his face with a photocopy of a canceled check from his top drawer. The check was cut from a Dallas bank, dated two days prior and made out to the Shakespeare McCann for Congress Committee. The familiar Texas Republican party logo of an elephant standing on a state seal appeared in the left-hand corner as sure as day.

  “Is that for real?” asked Hollice, not thinking how stupid it would be to assume that McCann would show him a faked check.

  “Real as rain on a tin roof,” sparked Shakespeare, picking up the phone and handing the receiver to Hollice. “Call the bank if you like.”

  The story didn’t wash with Hollice. Less than a week ago he’d had conversations with Bill Ziegler, who hadn’t said a damn thing about Shakespeare McCann other than the fact that he’d surprised the hell out of just about everybody up Dallas way with his fifteen-point pull from the Hurricane Hammond pool. On the contrary, Zig had implied that financial support of any party candidate against Mitch Dutton would be throwing good money after bad.

  “Go ahead. Call Zig, if you don’t want to call the bank.”

  “Why would I?” said Hollice. “It’s clear you’re their candidate and they’re behind you.”

  “Clear as crystal,” Shakespeare answered.

  The little cliches were grating on Hollice. That and the check. Was it enough to print, though? All he needed was to call Bill Ziegler to confirm the support. But party politics weren’t always made for public reading. And seventy-five thousand could be seed money or the only payday Shakespeare would ever see from up Dallas way. If denied, Hollice would have to print such a denial.

  Why take the chance? he thought on his drive back to the Island. Seventy-five grand worth of support was seventy-five grand. The interview had garnered him little else that was tangible. Like a slot machine that returns two quarters for every one wagered, Shakespeare had returned two questions fo
r every one he answered, revealing little in the process.

  Seventy-five thousand dollars.

  “That’s real support,” he’d told Shakespeare. “I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed enough to print it?”

  “Not up to me. Up to my boss. The editor.”

  “Charlie Flores. Yessir. Give him a howdy and hello from me,” quipped McCann.

  Charlie Flores was a staunch Republican. And hell if Hollice was going to give a howdy or hello from anybody. As for the check, that wasn’t really an issue. Real or not, it appeared to be real support. That would be worth printing. The Grand Ol’ Party, behind the new man from South County, Shakespeare McCann.

  Hollice looked forward to waving that in front of Mitch Dutton, who by luck was getting a free ride to the Hill because some fat, drunken incumbent couldn’t stay on his Goddamn horse.

  For the Dutton camp, June passed through in quiet gusts of activity. The state party had released funds to all its favorite nominees, sending Mitch’s staff on a spending spree. More office phones. More colorful pins and bumper stickers. More TV buys. Mitch and his message were regular, thirty-second spots at six and eleven. Business as usual, thought Fitz. It was full steam ahead, with the Shakespeare McCann campaign barely visible in the wake, fueling the rumor that the South County candidate was nothing more than a one-joke Johnny-we-hardly-knew-ya.

  But July. That was a month hot enough for its own headlines. The ever-present Gulf breezes faded, leaving afternoons so sticky with perspiration, the local power utility rolled out a last-minute radio campaign that pleaded for reduced energy consumption. The mercury soon tipped the Cathedral Island one-hundred-year record.

  Polling-wise, the month was far cooler. Fitz had kept a keen eye on the numbers, employing the bean counters at Electioneering USA to run weekly tracking on his candidate. As expected, the unlikely passing of George “Hurricane” Hammond had boosted Mitchell’s viability and acceptability to a whopping seventy-four percent. Name recognition was even higher at eighty-two percent. Still, amongst likely voters the most comforting figure was in the category of trust. There stood a huge gap between Mitchell’s name and that of the still unknown Shakespeare McCann. Mitchell’s score was in the seventies, where Shakespeare’s was just over fifteen points, not so coincidentally the same figure he’d garnered against the incumbent in the primary.

  “These are the kind of numbers that make my week,” e-mailed Fitz to Martin O’Roarke, a colleague working a state senate race up in Portland, Oregon. “They prove my theory that the opposition isn’t anything more than an amateurish, terrorist threat, leaving my candidate without the muddy, rhetorical entanglements campaigns are fast becoming famous for. That, and it leaves me, his genius campaign manager, to focus on the road ahead. In other words, I’m feeling like a winner.”

  The e-mail response was envious. “Fitz. Wake up. It’s July. How far away is November?”

  Mitch, on the other hand, nearly fully recovered from what he would only refer to as “the incident,” was back on the stump. He didn’t want to see the tracking numbers, preferring to run his campaign as he’d always intended—on the issues and new ideas for change in government.

  The high ground.

  He wrote his feelings in a Sunday guest column in the Daily Mirror that touched on everything but crime and, more important, Mitch’s none-too-popular view on capital punishment. Fitz had red-penned it.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” said the campaign manager. “You leave out the death penalty stuff and I’ll buy you and your wife the best dinner on the Island.”

  “That’d be at Portofino,” ventured Mitch, “but it’s officially off-island,” referring to the pricey Italian restaurant on the mainland side of the Span.

  “Done.”

  “What do you think that’ll cost ya?”

  “Two bills.”

  “Swell. Take that two hundred dollars and write out a check to the Cathedral Children’s Hospital. Right now. Then I’ll cut out the stuff on capital punishment.”

  Fitz grudgingly wrote the check with one arm twisted behind his back. “Now you’re learning.”

  “The trick with the check. I’m going to remember to use that,” mused Rene. “You had leverage and you used it.”

  “I have my persuasive moments,” said Mitch. “And then again, I don’t.” He was thinking back to the botched speech he’d just given to a South County chapter of the American Association of Retired People. It ended with an old woman, big enough for two whole chairs in the grade school auditorium, shaking her fist at him and bellowing, “You’re not gonna take away my Social Security!”

  “I’m not talking about your Social Security,” he had too rationally countered. “I’m talking about your grandchildren. The system is going bankrupt and it needs rethinking.”

  “Hard enough feeding three dogs and a husband with Alzheimer’s with what I got!”

  Mitch swallowed uncomfortably. Seemingly his big mistake was when he decided to ply the meeting with fact. “Did you know that between the ages of sixty-five and seventy, you’ll have spent just about everything you’ve paid into Social Security?”

  The shouting from the old lady rose way over the collective deafness of the forty-six attendees. Afterward Fitz threw an arm around Mitch. “Way to go. You just alienated the single most consistent voting block in America.”

  “I told the truth,” said Mitch, knowing he’d gone about the question and answers all wrong.

  “Next time save the truth for those who want to hear it.”

  Fitz had a meeting in Cathedral City after the event, so it was just Mitch and Rene on the drive home. But an accident involving an overturned semi closed the Span. There was no way to get back on the Island until traffic cleared. Rene suggested dinner. Mitch’s convenient answer?

  Portofino.

  A valet parked the Volvo. As they entered the tiny cliffside restaurant, Rene turned the usual heads. Men, mostly. All of whom were either sitting or standing, waiting for a table. “I forgot,” said Mitch. “They don’t take reservations.”

  Taking his hand in hers, she weaved the way over to the maitre d’. Instead of asking how long the wait was, she whispered. Instantly the maître d’ looked past her, his face beaming with sudden recognition. Menus in hand, he led the two of them to a corner table with a spectacular windowed view of the channel, and beyond, the Island. The Span above. The starry sky. The carnival-colored lights of Cathedral mirrored in the glassy green water. It was a table reserved for millionaires and heavy tippers.

  In all his years of anniversaries, birthday dinners, and special occasions, thought Mitch, he’d never rated such a table. Or even knew he could ask for it.

  And he was there with another woman.

  He found himself doing a defensive scan of the room to see if anyone was watching. If anyone had noticed. If there was anyone he knew. Or anyone who looked as if they recognized him.

  “So tell me. How does it feel?” asked Rene.

  “How does what feel?” He swung his attention back to her. She was close enough to kiss.

  “Celebrity,” she prompted.

  “You told the maître d’, didn’t you?”

  “That you were Mitch Dutton? The candidate? Sure. Now, are you going to answer my question?”

  “Celebrity?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I try not to think too much about it.”

  “Good boy. A little denial goes a long way.” She winked. “Just make sure you watch yourself. Or one day you’ll wake up and the grass won’t be green enough, the sky not blue enough, or the girl in your bed not young enough.”

  “Ah, the evils of power,” he said cynically.

  “Power corrupts.”

  “Absolutely,” finished Mitch. “Lord Acton, if I recall. He musta been for term limits.”

  “I know what I’m talking about, Mitch. It happens to every candidate.”

  “You know this from experience?”

  “I wa
s the girl in the bed.”

  Mitch practically choked on his breadstick. That and the images that came to him plugged his ears and stalled the conversation. Rene was stretched out on an unmade bed. Naked and wanting more. Across the room, a fat-assed, hairless candidate, drunk on Chivas. It didn’t fit But that picture of her, naked, needing…someone.

  She broke back in. “Power’s an amazing aphrodisiac.”

  “You’re talking to the original Boy Scout,” defended Mitch. “True and blue.”

  “Boy Scouts grow up.” She leaned in, but let her eyes flick around the room until she’d picked out a man. Classically handsome. Nice suit. “Look at him. The guy in the pinstripes. You think he has what you have?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Looks good. At a glance, a girl might be interested. But then she takes him home and finds out he’s more into his La-Z-Boy lounger than a good roll in the hay. I’ll bet he only gets off to pictures of Cindy Crawford.”

  “Be my guest,” tested Mitch. “Ask him. See if he isn’t tempted to give you the back of his hand.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t hit a woman. He’s scared of women.” Once again she gazed about the room, finding another victim. “The guy in the blue blazer, green tie. Now, there’s a wife beater if I ever saw one. I’ll bet he thinks missionary has something to do with the Catholic church.”

  “You are cruel,” he joked. “You don’t know these people. For all you know, he may be a priest.”

  “Wouldn’t mean I’m wrong.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “My turn to what?”

  “The woman. The blonde with Bubba over there. The one in the hat.”

  “What about her?”

  “You tell me.”

  The look Rene gave him spelled out her little game. A sort of sexual “What’s My Line?” Mitch held eye contact with her for a few seconds. Challenged. If he could’ve thought of a way to politely deflect, maybe he wouldn’t have turned to give die blonde with the hat act another look.

  “You’re too nice.”

  Mitch just shrugged.

  “Go ahead.”