“And Harry Truman,” Hotchins added. “Talk about stamina. He whistle-stopped Dewey to death. We can do the same thing. To Carter, Udall, Frank Church, even Humphrey if we have to. We know all this. The question is, Do we need the committee?”
“Academic question,” Lowenthal said. “We don’t have ’em, so why worry about it? Fitz’ll fight you all the way to the final ballot. I know him. I’ve been up against him before. He wants a winner; that’s the name of the game this year. And he doesn’t think you have a chance in hell. Look, you’re running, okay? You need money. If you’re a good party hack, they back you. If you’re a maverick, played by your own rules, voted against a few big party bills—which you have—they run out of money just when you need it. So you can forget the committee for money and support. And it can get very lonely out there if the party strongarms are against you. They’ll throw everybody in the party at you in the early primaries. They may even quietly support some weak sisters to split the vote, throw it into a runoff. Make you spend more money. And what Fitz is looking for is for you to run out of breath in the stretch. He plays for longevity. Longevity is what counts.”
“We’ll be waiting for him in New York come July,” Hotchins said, with more than just confidence. The way he said it, it was a statement of fact.
Lowenthal shook his head and chuckled. “Well, if confidence alone could win it, you’d be on the way to Washington right now,” he said. “But I must tell you, I don’t agree with this plan to announce on Monday. Hell, at least wait until after the New Year.”
“We can’t,” Roan said. “Carter’s getting ready himself.”
Lowenthal shook his head. “It’s Christmas. Nobody gives a damn about politics right now.”
“They will,” Hotchins said.
“Damn, you’re determined!” Lowenthal said.
Hotchins fixed himself a cup of tea and put half a spoonful of sugar into it. He stirred it slowly, looking at Lowenthal with his crystal blue eyes.
“What’s your interest in me, Julius?” he asked.
Lowenthal smiled. “Plain and simple? You’re a maverick and I like that, always have. I’ve been watching you for years. We believe in the same things.” Then: “So much for idealism. Now we’ll get to the bottom line. You have style. You have a hell of a war record. But the big thing is, I don’t think Humphrey can beat Ford and I think you just might. Ford’s the weakest incumbent president the Democrats have ever run against, but that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover. He can shake the Nixon thing. He’s already done a pretty good job of that. My personal opinion is that a dark horse is going to take him. And they don’t come any darker than you right now.”
Hotchins and Roan both laughed.
“Besides,” Lowenthal said, “maybe, just maybe, you could make one hell of a president.”
Hotchins smiled warmly. Then he laughed out loud.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said. “That’s one hell of an answer.”
“Good,” Lowenthal said, “now let’s get to the nut-cutting fast. You got any secrets. Anything in the closet we ought know about? Any illegitimate kids, bad friends, vices that may upset the little old ladies in Nebraska?”
Hotchins smiled to conceal a tiny shock that hit him in the stomach. A picture of Domino flashed past his eyes. “Of course not,” he said casually.
“We’ve been through this before,” Roan said. “If there was anything, it would have been turned up by now.”
“Not like this time. This time they’ll be all over you—into your business deals, your war record, your family life. Both parties in the beginning. I don’t want any surprises popping up at the last minute.”
“What else?” Hotchins said, killing that conversation.
“What’s your net worth?”
Hotchins thought about that for a few moments. “I suppose I’ll show close to a million dollars when my CPA finishes the audit. But most of that’s on paper. Investments, stock in trust to protect me from conflicts of interest.”
“How much liquid?”
“Less than two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Our credit position is very strong,” Roan said. “We can tap several banks. I’d say we can raise a million, maybe more to start with.”
“Not enough.”
“What is enough?” Hotchins asked.
Lowenthal tapped dead ashes out of his pipe. Then he said, “Two million, minimum. It could go higher depending on how rough it gets. And no big contributors. It could hurt you later. It also could be illegal.”
Hotchins stared at the lawyer. He had to be careful with Lowenthal. No matter how tough he might talk, Lowenthal was known for his integrity. It was one of the traits that gave him credence and had ever since he had first appeared on the political scene during the Kennedy campaign. But Hotchins was thinking, Illegal? It was only illegal if they got caught and he knew DeLaroza well enough to know Victor would never get caught. Hotchins’s big concern was two million dollars. Was his finance minister prepared to raise that kind of money? He thought he knew the answer.
“We’ve got it,” he said suddenly. “And without that son of a bitch Fitzgerald. I don’t want his money. I don’t want him until we get to New York. Then I want him with his hat in his hand, begging to get on board.”
He limped to the window and looked down at the street, at the little people scurrying back to their offices and after-lunch Alka Seltzers. The voters. They were little people to him, humiliated by the routines of life, badgered by the banks and the mortgage companies and the institutions, running one step ahead of failure. His contempt for the common man was a deeply guarded secret, a flaw which could destroy him. And looking down at them he felt a deep rage that his future lay in their hands. But the emotion passed quickly.
“So it’s Humphrey we have to beat,” he mused aloud.
“Hubert’s a fine man,” Lowenthal said. “And a hell of a campaigner.”
“He had his chance in ’68,” Hotchins said, and there was a snap to his voice, like a whip cracking. To Hotchins, he was a loser, a failure, like the little people below, a man who smiled in defeat and cried in public. Happy Warrior, hell. But he said nothing, for he sensed Lowenthal’s respect for the Minnesota senator.
Lowenthal walked over to him. “Look, you got a lot going for you. You’re handsome, honest, got a great record. You’re a war hero; you left a foot in Korea and came back with the Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart. You took a little nothing business and an SBA loan and parlayed it into a national franchise. You’re a lawyer, a soldier, a businessman. Got a great family. Mr. Clean. And it’s all beautiful and great. What it gets you, it gets you into the gate, period.
“After that, it’s a balls-out race. What I can do for you, I can bring in some real heavyweights. Joe McGuire, Angie Costerone, John Davis Harmon. They’ll come aboard if I’m aboard. I can work the demographics, tell you how to get the Chicano vote in L.A., the blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York, the Irish vote in Boston, the Polish vote in Chicago, deal with the unions, the city machines, the state hacks. We can do all that. But it won’t mean a damn unless we come off big. You got to open up your campaign like a winner and run like one. When we announce we have to take the biggest hall in the state and fill it with the kids, the senior citizens, blacks, reds, yellows, greens, pinks, Wasps. We want bands and noise and, uh, what we can’t do, we can’t come out with bupkus. You know bupkus? It’s Yiddish. It means nothing, zilch. A quiet noise. You sneak into this campaign and Fitz figures he’s got you dead already. You come out big, with me and McGuire and the rest, it’s gonna scare him to death.”
Hotchins grinned. He was going to come out big, all right. That, he could guarantee.
_____________________
Phipps Plaza was one of the city’s more elegant shopping centers, located a few minutes from Victor DeLaroza’s office, its parking lot three stories deep and under the mall. At two that Thursday afternoon there were only a few cars on the lower leve
l. One of them was a brown Rolls Royce which sat facing the exit ramp, its motor mumbling softly.
Hotchins guided his Buick down the ramp and parked beside it. As he got out of his car the rear door of the Rolls swung open and Hotchins got into its elegant interior. DeLaroza was sipping a cup of espresso, an enormous Havana cigar smoldering in his fist. He grinned as the senator sat beside him and he pressed a button in the armrest near his elbow. A window rose silently between the front and back seats.
“Bom dia,” DeLaroza said.
Hotchins shook his hand warmly. “I feel like I’m in the CIA,” he said, “sneaking around parking lots just to have a chat. You should have come to the hotel. I want you to meet Lowenthal.”
“All in time,” DeLaroza said. “I still put a high price on my privacy. When it becomes necessary for me to become a more public person, then I will deal with that problem at the time. So, what is so urgent?”
“Lowenthal’s in.”
“Excellent, excellent!” DeLaroza cried.
“And he’s bringing in McGuire, Casterone, and Harmon with him.”
“Ah! Even better. That is splendid news. More than you had hoped for, eh?”
Hotchins’s voice became flat and hard. His eyes narrowed. “I was counting on it,” he said. “Lowenthal is like an ace in a poker game. Without help he could be beat by a pair of deuces.”
“An interesting analogy. And who are these deuces?”
“Fitzgerald and Humphrey.”
“So, the National Committee has made its choice.”
“Yes.”
“It is no surprise, my friend, right?”
“No. And I like it this way,” Hotchins said. “When the convention’s over, we’ll have Fitzgerald at our feet. That’s what I want. I want them all to line up and kiss my ass.”
DeLaroza’s eyebrows arched as he listened to Hotchins’s venom spill out. He said, “I am sure Fitzgerald is aware of this threat.”
“Sure he is. They’re going to fight us hard and dirty. That’s all right. It’ll make the victory that much sweeter. I tell you, Victor, I can taste it. Taste it.” Hotchins’s eyes burned with almost sensual delight as he spoke.
“Easy, my friend. Save that energy, it is a long time between now and July.”
But Hotchins’s ardor could not be stemmed. He had contained himself in Lowenthal’s presence, not wishing to reveal his need. Now he let go, savoring what he felt was a sweet victory.
“I can feel it in my bones,” he said. “Lowenthal’s committed. He’s excited, enthusiastic. And he’s a brilliant tactician. Just what we need to go up against the committee. Now we can beat ’em, I know it. We can grind the sons of bitches under.”
DeLaroza stared at the senator and puffed on his Havana. Somewhere within the immaculate framework of the Rolls an exhaust fan quietly sucked the smoke from the rear compartment.
“You remember a movie with Brando called One-Eyed Jacks?” DeLaroza said.
“Why? What’s the point.”
“You remind me of a one-eyed jack. The rest of the world sees only half your face. They see the veteran hero, the warm family man, charging windmills, tilting with the political machines. How many people ever see the other side, the hidden face of the jack?”
“Why, what do you see there?” Hotchins asked cautiously.
“A barracuda. A competitor with big needs, big hungers. It is what attracted me to you, Donald. That is why you will win. It will not be because of Lowenthal or Casterone or any of the others. You will win because you have an instinct for the jugular and that will surprise them.”
Hotchins leaned forward in the seat, tense and suddenly uneasy. They had never talked this openly before. Finally he said, “Takes one to know one, right, Victor?”
“Oh, I am not a barracuda,” DeLaroza said. “The barracuda is selective. It picks its victims to appease its appetite. I am a shark, Donald. I will eat anything that comes in my way.”
“Sounds like a warning,” Hotchins said.
“No. I want to make sure you are aware that I too have big appetites. And I also go for the throat.”
Hotchins pondered the comment for a few moments and then laughed. “All right,” he said.
DeLaroza laughed with him. He puffed on the cigar again, then said, “Now, what are the complications?”
It was Hotchins’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Complications? Who said anything about complications?”
“My friend, there are always complications.”
Hotchins rubbed his hands together but said nothing.
“I would guess,” said DeLaroza, “that it is money.”
“You’re a mind reader.”
“Not really. The last thing one always discusses is the price.”
Hotchins’s blue eyes grew colder. He looked DeLaroza hard in the eyes. “The price is two million dollars.”
The big man said nothing for a few minutes. He puffed on the Havana, savoring the taste of the smoke on his tongue, letting the smoke ease from his lips, watching it race toward the concealed exhaust vents. Then he said, “Is this Lowenthal’s estimate?”
Hotchins nodded.
“He’s low,” DeLaroza said.
“Low?”
“Yes, low. According to our computer, it will take four point six million. That is, of course, considering all the variables. Possible run-offs, et cetera. Add on a ten percent contingency, over five million.”
Hotchins chewed his lips. He looked out the window of the car, staring around the tomblike interior of the parking lot. A Honda pulled in and stopped and a hassled suburban wife lifted a crying child from the car, then dragged him along behind her toward the elevators.
“I know what you are thinking,” DeLaroza said, “you are thinking how could Lowenthal make such a sizeable error. Correct?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“It is simple. The last time he was involved in a campaign was ’68. In ’72 his man lost in the primary, but principle was involved. We cannot fault him there. The point is, it is eight years since he was involved in a campaign that went all the way. Inflation. New methods. The cost of television, newspaper advertising, all rising every day. Many things could account for the discrepancy. He is not an accountant. His political acumen is beyond value. With his friends, you have a package worth more than a million dollars. You probably could not buy them for that.”
“You can’t buy them at all,” Hotchins said.
“I would tend to doubt that. It is naïve, but also immaterial. We have them, that is what is important.” He paused, then mused aloud, “Five million dollars. A lot of money.”
“Yes,” Hotchins said. “Now we have some strong bank commitments and …”
DeLaroza held up a hand. “Donald … Donald, wait. I said a lot of money. I did not say too much money. You have relied on my financial advice for what—sixteen years now? Are you getting nervous because the price is going up?”
“It has to be done carefully,” Hotchins said. “You know the rules of disclosure. If Fitzgerald can turn up anything—”
“Please,” DeLaroza said, “do not tell the hunter how to load his gun.”
Hotchins stopped. Then he patted DeLaroza on the knee. “Sorry,” he said.
“The money is my problem,” DeLaroza said. “There is this other thing.”
“It can wait,” Hotchins said quickly.
“No, I think not.”
“It can wait!”
“No.”
The muscles in the corners of Hotchins’s jaw quivered, then grew rigid. The flat, hard tone returned to his voice. “It is personal, Victor.”
“It is a dangerous thing now. Before it was merely risky. I could understand it. I know that kind of hunger. But …”
“It’s still my business.”
“I have never risked five million dollars on you before, Donald.”
“Ah, so now I find out where the strings are.”
“Have there ever been strings attached befor
e?”
“No. But I knew there must be a price. Sooner or later there had to be a price. I guess now is as good a time as any to settle that.”
“You are getting off the subject.”
“This is the subject.”
“You are getting angry,” DeLaroza said.
“You’re damn right. We’re getting into my personal life—”
“You have no personal life anymore.”
“Half the politicians in Washington have mistresses.”
“Half the politicians in Washington are not running for president.”
“Jesus!”
“Donald, we are friends. After all it was I who introduced you to the woman. I saw the need. Understood it. But now it must wait until after the election.”
“You think she’s going to wait around until after the election? Hell, you know her better than that, Victor. Besides, it’s not just me, it’s the idea of me that fascinates her.”
DeLaroza nodded. “I am glad you realize that,” he said.
“It would be a sign of weakness, asking her to sit in the wings until the election’s over.”
“My friend, when you are in the Oval Office, you will have anything you wish. Women will be at your call.”
But I need her now, Hotchins thought to himself. “I’m not talking about women,” he said, “I’m talking about her.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“Possibly. No, not really. Not in the dramatic sense. But in a way I … hell, I don’t know. Don’t push me. Don’t push me.”
DeLaroza scowled. He was on dangerous ground and he knew it. Now was not the time to start pulling the strings. And yet, the issue was crucial to him. “Am I to believe that you would risk something like this for a piece of ass?” he said.
Hotchins glowered at him, his face red, anger boiling in his eyes. “What was that?” he demanded.
DeLaroza shook his head violently and waved his hand in the air. “I am sorry,” he said quickly. “That was a foolish remark. Forgive it.”
They sat without speaking and the minutes crept by. Finally DeLaroza said, “We will drop it for now. I did not mean to cause harsh words. I was speaking as one friend to another. Just promise me that you will consider it. Think about it. Will you do that?” It annoyed him to patronize Hotchins, but he sensed two egos keening the air like dueling swords.
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