Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 2

by Joseph Flynn

  If the party’s presidential nominee had his way those speak-the-truth-to-power bastards would have been kept outside the building, preferably no closer than Oklahoma. But Tom T. Wright said let them in and Tom was paying for the hall. He’d also paid for the infrastructure that got True South on the ballot in all fifty states, was buying TV time in major markets and had been busing volunteers to the far reaches of the country to set up a ground game.

  When you paid the piper you called the tune.

  You could also turn off the lights, if you wanted.

  More important than any of that, Howard Hurlbert feared that Tom T. Wright had the kind of dirt on him that could lock him away for the rest of his life. Look at who brought Wright to him in the first place, that miserable wife-beater Bobby Beckley. If there was anybody who knew where Hurlbert was vulnerable it was Bobby.

  What the law would call the two of them was coconspirators.

  Put them in the same cell and Hurlbert knew he’d be the one getting cornholed.

  So Senator Howard Hurlbert followed the directions Tom T. Wright had set out for him, but he’d yet to buy into being a latter-day Southern populist. It wasn’t necessary to improve the average man’s lot in life to win his vote. All you had to do was give him an enemy to hate and he was happy.

  Divide and conquer had been a favored strategy forever because it worked.

  Populism pretended it was about bringing people together, Hurlbert thought, and to a degree that was true. It brought the mob together. Instead of turning against each other for reasons of skin color, culture or language, the lower orders directed their resentments against their betters, people with more money, land, toys and the time to enjoy them all.

  Bigotry taught hate of the poor; populism taught hate of the rich.

  That was the way Hurlbert saw matters, anyway.

  He also saw the evil seed that blonde witch Jean Morrissey had sown. If the people of means didn’t make sure everybody got his piece of the pie, and a scoop of ice cream, too, they damn well better build moats around their mansions and learn how to drive armored personnel carriers. Because ol’ Billy Bob does, in fact, own an assault rifle and hunting the rich might prove to be more fun than bringing home a twelve-point buck.

  The notion made Hurlbert shudder, but he didn’t put it beyond happening. Things got too far out of hand, you’d have some hillbillies eating the rich. Then what the hell good would having a lot of money be? No good at all if you weren’t free to enjoy it.

  One of Tom T. Wright’s young people knocked on his door.

  Pretty young lady, graduated top of her class at Rice.

  Ought to be thinking about getting rich herself. At least marrying a young man who was going to make his fortune. Instead, she was working for a fool’s crusade, trying to get him elected president. What were young people coming to these days?

  Of course, the latest polls showed he was doing better than he’d ever expected.

  Within five points of Mather Wyman.

  Only eleven behind Patti Grant.

  The young lady told him, “You’re on, Senator.”

  He gently clasped her hand in both of his and said, “Thank you.”

  The smile she gave him was so warm he almost thought he was doing the right thing.

  He waved to the delegates as he stepped to the lectern at the front of the ballroom. They seemed genuinely enthused, too. Made him think they were all high on the same drug, hope.

  The applause kept him smiling long enough to make his face sore.

  As soon as he got the chance, Senator Hurlbert started to speak.

  “Huey Long,” he said, “told us that in this country every man should be a king. Me, I don’t think we need any kings at all. What we need is a country where every man, woman and child can live like a king.”

  The message wasn’t a tough sell. Every-damn-body got to his feet and cheered.

  Except for Tom T. Wright. He just kept his seat and smiled.

  The Oval Office

  Galia Mindel said, “I tried to make clear to Madam Vice President before we left the convention that picking an unnecessary fight with the most powerful lobby in Washington was not a good idea. She responded that it was small potatoes compared to the obliteration of entire countries.”

  “She’s right about that,” the president said.

  “Of course, she’s right, but that’s irrelevant. We don’t need that debate.”

  “Maybe it’s just what we need. Not right now. After the inauguration. It might be useful.”

  “Useful? How?” Galia asked.

  The president said, “Sometimes people need to get a look at scary possibilities to help them see sense. If we ever again have unemployment levels like those of the Great Depression, how close do you think Jean’s shoot-the-rich scenario would come to reality?”

  Galia needed only a moment to decide. “Very close. Could well be real. Truth is, she didn’t go far enough. If the rich become fair game, elected officials will, too. Then we’d have anarchy.”

  The president nodded, “And whose efforts put weapons of war into the hands of people who have neither military training nor discipline?”

  “Our old friends, the gun lobby.”

  “Exactly. Now that Jean has opened the conversation, we’ll be asked to continue it.”

  “You’re going to confront the gun lobby head on?”

  The president laughed. “Charge into the canon fire? No, I don’t think so. But I do have another idea.”

  “I’d love to hear it,” Galia said, not really sure that she would.

  “What is it that women do ever so much better than men?”

  Galia said, “The list goes on forever.”

  Patti laughed. “Well, maybe a mile or two anyway. What I was thinking about, though, is our ability to start a conversation and keep it going.”

  “Okay,” Galia said, waiting to see where the president was going.

  “At the moment, proposing much less passing gun control laws makes no sense. It would be like trying to bring Prohibition back. Even if you could pass the law, people would not abide by it.”

  “Not that the gun lobby would ever let it pass. Not that a supermajority of the Senate wouldn’t filibuster it,” Galia said.

  “Exactly. That’s the way things are now. The gun lobby runs the show. Congress is in its pocket. But you know what, Galia, nobody can filibuster a national conversation. After Jean raised everyone’s hackles, I did a little checking on my own. You know how many people belong to the NRA? Four million. You know how many American adults own one or more guns? Fifty million. So more than ninety percent of gun owners don’t belong to the NRA. You do a little more research and you find well over a hundred million American adults don’t own any firearms at all.”

  Despite her misgivings, Galia started doing the political calculus in her head.

  The president continued, “So what I think we should do next term is start the discussion from right here in the Oval Office. What does responsible gun ownership look like? What carries the right to bear arms beyond anything the authors of the Constitution might have imagined? How do we look at the Second Amendment in light of advances of firearm technology far beyond the days of muskets and flintlocks?

  “We ask these questions and a hundred more and we get an idea of what the country at large, not just the gun lobby and the voices in its choir, thinks are the right things to do. Then, if we can arrive at a consensus on what the Second Amendment should mean in the twenty-first century, we go to Congress and propose laws that reflect the will of the people.”

  Galia said, “That’s absolutely subversive, Madam President.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not sure I meant that as a compliment. I meant that you’ll turn things upside down.”

  Patti Grant smiled. “I’ve been meaning to ask Jim how he’d feel if I got a tattoo. ‘Born to Cause Upheaval.’”

  “I think I’ll leave that one alone,” Galia said.
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br />   “There’s one very important question I want to raise when we have this discussion,” the president said. The expression on her face said it was the most important question to her.

  “What’s that, Madam President?”

  “How could anyone try to justify owning a rocket launcher like the one Erna Godfrey used to kill Andy?”

  There was, of course, no justification for that.

  The president’s question raised one in Galia’s mind.

  Had the president used her new VP to raise the gun issue in the first place?

  11

  September, 2012

  Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward — Manhattan

  Cheveyo had been lent the use of a staff doctor’s office. He and McGill sat and listened to a recording of the confession Anderson had provided. Nothing like letting a prisoner think he might become subject to the same cruelties he’d visited upon others to get him talking.

  Anderson had begun with a plea for mercy. “Don’t castrate me! You want to kill me, go ahead. You got to show me you’re serious, just take one nut. But not both and not my dick.”

  Anderson had paused, as if waiting for a reply.

  Cheveyo shook his head and said, “Shows you how people organize their self-images. I surely wouldn’t want to lose my genitals, but I’d fear a lobotomy more.”

  McGill said nothing, thought it’d be a toss-up for him.

  Sounding anxious that he might be anesthetized at any moment, Anderson continued, “Okay, here’s what I know.”

  He told them that the plan he, Crosby and Todd had come up with was to follow Chana Lochlan’s speaking tour and grab Margaret Sweeney or kill her. But McGill and the others had to know that because they had a trap ready for him. He and Crosby had both figured Chana Lochlan was being used to bait the two of them, but they thought they could beat the trap. They were pros competing against amateurs.

  Anderson paused to take a breath.

  “A sense of grandiosity,” Cheveyo said.

  “What I’ve read, these two used to be really something,” McGill responded. “Maybe they’d just lost a step. Although, we thought Todd might’ve been upgrading them.”

  Cheveyo nodded.

  Anderson had more to give. He told them Crosby and Todd would be traveling at least for a little while in a black BMW. He gave them the license plate number. He honestly couldn’t say what Todd wanted more, to kill McGill or run off with Chana Lochlan. Anderson said if McGill and Cheveyo didn’t kill him, he’d find a way to commit suicide. Death was what he deserved for betraying Crosby. Betraying Todd, too. Who wasn’t such a bad guy and the moronic CIA damn well should have hired him.

  The only thing he asked, no matter who killed him, was to go out as a man.

  Anderson moaned, “No, no!” He felt himself losing consciousness.

  His ketamine hydrochloride dose had been elevated.

  But he wasn’t going to be castrated.

  Cheveyo was going to have a go at hypnotizing him. He’d be told to forget he’d ever been threatened with the loss of his penis. Wouldn’t do to have that testimony come out before Congress. He’d also be coaxed into forgetting about suicide. Persuaded he deserved a life sentence in a supermax prison.

  McGill thought Cheveyo had a lot of work cut out for him and didn’t envy him any of it.

  “They bonded,” McGill said. “Anderson spoke respectfully of Todd.”

  “But the three of them didn’t come at you together. So there was still a hierarchy.”

  “When there were three of them. Two people tend to pair off.”

  Cheveyo shook his head. “Anderson and Crosby were the natural pairing, and they didn’t use that.”

  McGill had to agree. “Todd could be hanging back, seeing how the pros do it, learning from their mistakes.”

  “Or he just doesn’t want to lose to you again. He might be content to kidnap Ms. Lochlan while Crosby is keeping you busy.”

  That was an idea or part of one McGill could buy.

  He said, “Todd wants both, me dead and Chana for himself. He might use Crosby’s attack on me as a distraction to make a kidnapping attempt. But does that mean Margaret Sweeney is out of danger?”

  Cheveyo said, “No. Anyone close to you might be a target. If not for distraction then torment. If Todd can’t reach you —”

  “I understand,” McGill said. He didn’t need to hear more. “Let me know if Anderson gives you anything more that’s useful.”

  McGill decided he couldn’t allow Todd to focus on anyone but him.

  Well, him and Chana.

  He’d have to do for Chana what he’d refused to do the first time she came to him. Become her personal bodyguard. Let Elspeth be his visible protection. See if he could lead Todd and Crosby to think they were more than a match for a female Secret Service agent and him.

  Everyone else would have to hang back to suck Crosby in.

  Let him think he could beat the trap, even if Anderson hadn’t.

  In the Chevy with Leo and Elspeth on the way back to D.C., McGill received a call from Byron DeWitt. He told McGill, “The flag pin Anderson was wearing, it was a webcam. Todd and Crosby must’ve seen you when you bagged Anderson.”

  McGill thought about that. “Is it still working?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there’s a chance I might use it to send a personal message?”

  After a moment’s silence, DeWitt said, “Maybe.”

  McGill said, “Let’s give it a try when I get back to town.”

  Q Street — Washington, D.C.

  The moment Aria and Callista Yates were tucked into their facing cribs, lying on their backs, Welborn assuring Kira the baby monitor was activated and operational, Mom and Dad dragged themselves into their bedroom. Welborn fell backward onto the marital Tempurpedic king, not bothering to remove his shoes.

  He thought he could yield to unconsciousness within minutes had he landed on a bed of nails. He didn’t remember Air Force Academy basic cadet training being as grueling as the first days of fatherhood. A fifty-pound rucksack was a trifle to carry compared to bearing the burden of assuring a bright future for two six-pound baby girls.

  Welborn was sliding down the slope of conscious responsibility into the soft warm sea of sleep when he heard his name called. Kira asking for attention. Not now, please. Not even for the enticing exercise that had led them to this very moment.

  “Welborn,” Kira said again. More iron in her tone than silk.

  He conceded one raised eyelid to her. “What?”

  “There’s a legal pad on our dresser.”

  He let the eyelid close. “Property of a burglar who makes notes?”

  “My legal pad,” Kira said.

  Now, he remembered, but he kept his eyes closed, said nothing.

  “It was face down. I never leave anything face down.”

  Welborn still hadn’t heard a question, but he felt Kira join him on the bed. More than that, he smelled her hovering above him. He hoped the lactating Mrs. Yates didn’t drip on him.

  Still longing for rest, eyelids steadfastly shut, he said, “I’m sure everything will look better in the morning.”

  “It is morning.”

  “I worked the night shift,” he reminded her.

  “We need to talk, now.”

  Welborn responded with a jaw-cracking yawn, hoping his breath was stale enough to make Kira retreat. She was made of sterner stuff. He gave up and opened both eyes.

  Kira told him, “I know you saw what I wrote on my pad. If I wasn’t so busy having twins, I’d never have left it where you could see it. What I want to know is, did you rat me out?”

  Welborn told the mother of his children the truth. “No.”

  Kira looked for any sign of a lie. She studied his eyes. They were bloodshot with exhaustion but were not evasive. She saw no tremor of deceit anywhere in his body. But then he didn’t have the energy for that. Aware that she’d never caught him in a lie, or even suspected him of one, for a
s long as they’d known each other, she had no choice but to accept his word as true.

  “Thank you,” Kira said. “That must have been hard for you.”

  “It was, but I found a way to rationalize my inaction.”

  “That being?”

  “Telling myself that Galia Mindel must have anticipated such an attack the moment she learned the president was going to change parties. Your idea was not only unworthy of you, but you unwittingly placed your Uncle Mather in a very bad spot. To put it bluntly, if he should raise the topic of quitting in a presidential debate, I would bet our girls’ college money the president will hand him his ass. If he doesn’t raise the topic, it will be raised for him. For example, your Uncle Mather did resign his position as vice president. Galia won’t overlook that.”

  Kira looked stricken. She had overlooked that.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

  “I believe your scheme was hatched before Aria and Callista were. I didn’t have the chance. After your uncle raised the issue of quitters at his nominating convention, it was too late. For future reference, please bear in mind, it’s never a good thing for an amateur to take on a pro.”

  Tears formed in Kira’s eyes. Welborn pulled her down into his embrace.

  As they fell asleep together, he hoped he wasn’t overrating Galia Mindel.

  August Coppola Theatre, SFSU — San Francisco, California

  Damon Todd felt at home on the campus of San Francisco State University. He’d spent much of his career, pre-Funny Farm, in academia. Arn Crosby hated the place. He liked tech schools, the ones that taught useful skills. Like how to kill the other guy before he killed you. A university, with all the snootiness that word implied, in San Francisco, where you couldn’t kill the ‘60s if you used cyanide, gave him nothing but bad feelings.

  But Todd was the one who clenched his teeth when he saw the notice at the front of the theatre. Crosby showed no emotion despite seeing …

  An Evening with Chana Lochlan had been canceled.