by Ed Gorman
The meeting room was down the hall from me. Lucy said they tried to meet every day at four o’clock. I wandered down there.
The table was old and cigarette-scarred and chipped. Same for the chairs. On a far wall was a giant plasma TV screen. A gallery of Jeff Ward posters covered all the other available wall space. These were more somber than the ones downstairs. Here he was with his gorgeous wife and their two very beautiful little girls. Here he was in front of a cathedral with hard hats of different ethnicities standing around him. Two for one — God and the labor force. And here he was ladling out soup in a soup kitchen. He looked comfortable in the long white apron.
Lucy sat across the table from a young man in an inexpensive brown suit that was about the same color as his thinning hair. When he heard me come in he looked up and frowned.
‘Jim Waters, say hello to Dev Conrad.’
He muttered something that might or might not have been hello.
‘I think you can do a little better than that.’
He said, ‘You’re not here to fire me, are you?’
He was older than I’d thought at first, headed toward thirty. The eyes had the sadness and desperation of the outsider; not the rebellious outsider who taunted but the outsider who suffered. I had a cousin I’d been close to growing up much like that. He was and is a good man whom God or genes cast out in the darkness a long time ago and he hasn’t been let back in since.
‘Not at all, Jim, if I may call you that. I’m just here to check on a couple of things. Nothing about employment at all.’
He had a young, round face. His displeasure made him look petulant. ‘I just don’t like people coming in and telling me what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve been writing speeches for seven years. I’m not exactly a beginner.’
If he was a dog he’d piss on the floor to mark his territory. That is always the danger of coming into a functioning campaign. They don’t like you, heed you, or trust you. I’d feel the same way. Nobody wants to be second-guessed.
I leaned across the table and offered my hand. He stared at it as if he wasn’t quite sure what it was, then he pouted a bit and finally shoved his hand into mine.
‘Good to meet you, Jim. Let’s get one thing straight, all right? The reason I’m here has absolutely nothing to do with anybody’s job performance or anything like that. I’m just here to check out a couple of things with the congressman. I’m sure you don’t believe that but it’s the truth.’
He didn’t look happy but at least he wasn’t scowling any longer. ‘I was sort of an asshole there. I apologize.’
‘Thank you, Jim,’ Lucy said. ‘I just want him to meet the staff. Me included. If he was some kind of hired gun or something like that, my job would be on the line, too. And it isn’t. And nobody else’s is, either. We’re hoping that Dev might have an idea or two for going up against Burkhart in the debate. That’s one of Dev’s specialties. Debates. He’s handled several big ones.’
Waters was on his feet and headed for an automatic coffeemaker on a stand a few feet from the TV screen. ‘You like yours black, Dev?’ I had to get used to the quick change of tone. He sounded friendly now.
‘That’d be great, Jim. I appreciate it.’
There was a woman’s sweet laughter in the hall and two other people now appeared. This would be, according to Tom’s backgrounder, Kathy Tomlin and David Nolan. Tomlin was the media coordinator and Nolan was Ward’s chief of staff. Tomlin wore a green fitted dress and had a freckled face that was more pretty than beautiful. Nolan was tall, thin, wore wide red suspenders and, with his graying hair and rimless glasses, reminded me of many of my professors in college. He was the opposite of his lifelong friend the congressman. Jeff Ward was a taker with an almost piratical swagger. His number one staffer — and some said the authentic thinker of the duo — was a giver. Though they were the same age, Nolan looked fifteen years older than Ward.
He also looked distracted. He sat down now, glanced around, then opened the laptop he’d set on the table. He immediately began staring at some presumably compelling image the rest of us couldn’t see. He’d either been crying recently or was miserably hung-over. His gaze belonged on a homeless man.
Kathy Tomlin said, ‘I don’t really have much today. I’m sorry. The only news — and so far it’s only scuttlebutt — is that some far-right organization is going to give Burkhart a million dollars’ worth of commercials they’re putting together. These are the creeps who brought down Helen Agee two years ago. The good old lesbian smear. It was ridiculous but they made it work. But fortunately David’s got some ideas to help us.’
She finished, sounding expectant. Nolan would pick up her cue and take it from there. But he didn’t. He was still staring off into the distance. Apparently he could no longer endure staring at the screen.
‘David,’ Kathy repeated softly.
‘Oh.’ He looked neither flustered nor embarrassed. He just seemed confused. ‘Oh, right.’ He sat up straight in his chair. Lucy and Waters studied him. I wasn’t the only one puzzled by his behavior. ‘Right.’ He tried a smile that was more a grimace. Then he turned in my direction. ‘You must be Dev Conrad.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Jeff’s father has a lot of faith in you. I hope you can help us.’ His eyes weren’t quite focused. And then he stopped talking. I wondered if he was physically sick. His face gleamed with sweat. ‘What was I saying, Kathy?’
‘The right-wing contributions for Burkhart.’
‘Oh, yes, right.’ His attempt at a smile was embarrassing. Around the table the eyes studied him with silent alarm. He settled back in his chair, as if he was relaxed now. In control of himself again. But when he began to speak it was obvious he’d either forgotten or chose not to talk about the right-wing group Kathy had talked about.
I wondered if he’d had a stroke. His behavior certainly suggested that. I wasn’t alone. The three staffers looked at each other anxiously.
He reached for a silver pitcher of water to fill the glass in front of him. His hand was trembling so badly he dropped the pitcher almost as soon as he started to raise it. It landed hard. Though it was in no danger of spilling, the staffers automatically started to rise in their chairs to grab it.
‘Oh, God,’ Lucy half whispered. ‘David, are you-?’
‘What was I saying?’ Nolan said as if he was unaware of his strange behavior. ‘Oh — right. Well, I contacted this group of investors who frankly think it’s time to do a little business with our side. They know everything’s up for grabs in this election but they still think it’s time to have a sit-down with somebody we know in the administration. They’re willing to spend thirty million dollars on making and airing some generic commercials that favor us. They won’t spend it all on our district; they want to make it as national as possible.’ He stopped talking. An engine that had run down.
‘What makes this so interesting,’ Kathy said quickly, ‘aside from the money is that three of the products they want some federal funding for — they need further research — are very eco-friendly. That means the other party doesn’t want anything to do with them. Unfortunately, a lot of our senators and reps are on the same payroll and will vote against us. But I think we’ve still got enough votes. And David thinks so, too, don’t you?’
The smile that was a grimace again. Was he in pain? ‘Right.’ His eyes brightened. There was strength in his voice now. ‘I’m hoping we get at least four million. We can put a lot of that into radio and some extra TV.’
Lucy and Waters did the power fist.
‘I’ll bet Jeff was happy when he heard about it,’ Lucy said.
Nolan’s jaw clenched. He said nothing.
‘We haven’t had a chance to tell him yet. But he’ll be happy as hell. You can bet on it.’ Kathy touched Nolan’s arm and said, ‘Good work, David.’ She was a nurse talking to a very sick patient.
‘Excellent work,’ Lucy said in the same way.
The accolades didn’t free him from whate
ver mental prison he was in. The smile was a little less pensive at their words but something troubled him so much that he was barely present.
‘Well,’ he said, pushing back from the table. ‘Guess I should get back to work.’
Which made no sense. Wasn’t this, what he was doing at the moment, work?
He next did a sight gag, getting his foot tangled in the legs of the chair as he stood up and tried to walk. He almost fell down, righting himself then muttering more to himself than us, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Then he glanced at me. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Dev. We need you to help with the debate. It’s make or break for us.’
‘Is he all right?’ Lucy asked Kathy when he was gone.
‘I think so.’ She didn’t sound sure. ‘I think maybe the hours he puts in are finally catching up with him. I think he should take two days off and do nothing but rest and go for walks. He loves to walk.’
‘He’s usually the one who keeps all of us up and excited,’ Lucy said to me. ‘Maybe he really is just tired out.’
But she knew better than that and so did I.
Kathy glanced at me and frowned. ‘This wasn’t a very good introduction to our team here, Mr Conrad. I hope the rest of the day goes a lot smoother than this.’
‘No sense hiding it, Kathy,’ Waters said. ‘We’ve had a lot of ups and downs lately. That’s just the way it is.’
The two women looked uncomfortable but they said nothing.
I wondered if one of these three was the spy feeding information to Burkhart.
THREE
‘ He just looks so presidential,’ one older woman said to another standing under the poster of Congressman Jeff Ward leaning back to throw a football a la John Kennedy.
They seemed to be in their Sunday best, right down to small white gloves. They were the kind of women you always saw at weekday Mass. Decent people who’d worked hard for very little all their lives and whose grandparents and parents had indoctrinated them to vote for our party. There was something endearing about them, their old-fashioned coats and dresses and makeup and sweet perfume. They were out of their time and I liked that without quite knowing why. These are the kind of supporters who will bake cookies for fund drives and make arrangements for voters who need rides to the polls. They’re invaluable.
Since high school had ended at least an hour ago, the headquarters was also packed with teenagers receiving instructions about getting out posters, signs, pamphlets, and door-to-door reminders about the elections coming up. For all of TV’s vaunted powers — and those powers are primary — you still need a ground attack, and that means volunteers who want to win as badly as the candidate does. And if you’re sixteen or seventeen and male it means working on a campaign can get you in close proximity to girls — and I suspect it just might work the other way for girls — you might not otherwise meet. Romance was always in the air during campaigns.
The people working the ground floor were as efficient and functional as the people on the second floor seemed not to be. Middle-aged women and men of both blue collar and white sending the kids off to war with repeated orders and smiles.
I drifted back to where three coffeepots burbled. A white-haired woman in a small flowery apron was just setting out a tray of homemade cookies decorated with the word ‘Ward’ in red. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thank you. I think I will.’
‘That is, if you’re planning to vote for Congressman Ward.’
‘I would if he was in my district but I vote in Chicago.’
‘Well, I guess that entitles you to a cookie, anyway. My name’s Joan Rosenberg. I run the kitchen back there.’
‘You’re obviously doing a great job.’
‘They’ll be gone in less than twenty minutes. And that’ll make me very happy.’ A wry smile. ‘On one campaign I worked on a long time ago back in the sixties, the only people who’d eat my cookies were the ones who smoked marijuana. I think the older people were thinking I put some pot in my cookies. My husband’s a rabbi. He sure didn’t want people to think his wife was making illegal cookies.’ She laughed. ‘I’d be on America’s Most Wanted.’
It was nice to bask in her goodwill and intelligence. Not to mention her lack of cunning. A gentle, sweet woman of the kind who always turns out for campaigns. They have ideals and support them with hard work. And none of the cynicism of the professionals rubs off on them.
I followed her eyes to the door that led to the back. Jim Waters was making his way toward us.
‘Hi, Jim. They’re just out of the oven.’ She pointed to the cookies.
By now I’d had my first bite. I held it up as if I was in a commercial. ‘This is terrific.’
I noticed that she put her hand on Waters’ shoulder as he bent to whisk a cookie from the plate. I also noticed that the merriment in her brown eyes changed to concern. She looked maternal watching him, patting him a few times as he straightened up.
As he took his first taste he said, ‘You never miss, Joan. This is great.’ But despite his words the round face, not quite adult but not quite teenager either, sagged into an expression of hurt, maybe even loss. I’d focused on his anger upstairs. Now I saw what was behind the anger.
‘How’re you doing today, Jim? Better than yesterday?’
These two had a history. She wanted to be brought up to date. Obviously she’d been thinking about him.
‘Yeah. A little better, I guess.’
He glanced at me. I realized I was in the way. I finished my cookie and grabbed my paper cup of coffee. ‘Guess I’ll wander back up front. Thanks very much for the cookie.’ I nodded to Waters. ‘Maybe we should have dinner tonight if you’ve got time.’
He looked surprised, then suspicious. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
Up front several teenagers were trying to hang a large WARD. FOR THE PEOPLE. sign that would stretch from one side of the large room to the other. They were having a good time, especially the couples who were flirting and joking.
I walked up to the front window and looked out at the street. People were starting to drive home from work. Traffic clogged the four-lane avenue. As the front door opened and closed I could smell autumn again and it made me wonder what my college senior daughter was doing. Unlike me she was a sports fan. She loved football games especially. She never wanted for dates to games or any kind of social events, not only having inherited her mother’s brains but also her good looks. Then I thought of what Tom Ward said about how consultants make less than ideal fathers. Even though she’d lived with her mother except for the month she spent with me every summer, she loved me enough to forgive me and we were now not only father and daughter but true friends.
Then a voice said, ‘I’ll take you up on that dinner, Dev. And I won’t be such a shit.’ Even his grin was glum. ‘You just kind of scared me, I guess.’
‘I’m pretty harmless, Jim. Nobody’s going to lose his or her job.’
He tried to make a joke of it. ‘Well, I’m too important to fire, right? A big shot like me?’
‘You’re probably right. I read some of the recent speeches you wrote for Ward. They’re excellent.’
‘Oh, hell, they weren’t anything special.’ He waved my words away, looking uncomfortable. ‘I wrote better ones last year.’
I gave him my card. ‘I’ll be eating at the hotel tonight. Just give me a call.’
‘I will. I–I’ve got some things we need to talk about.’ Another awkward look, and then he swung around and headed quick and dead-on to the door.
As he left I got another scent of Halloween season. Then I happened to notice the blonde in the silver Porsche. She was almost directly across from me so I got a good look at her face. She was one of those fashionable country club women, all blonde and sculpted and self-reverent, like a sexual icon you could admire but never know. Just now she raised a camera with a long lens to her face and began snapping away. Since Waters was the only person on the street and since her lens moved with him as he walked, there was no doubt he was her
subject.
She adjusted the lens once then put the camera down. Half a minute later she shot out of her parking space and bulleted into traffic. I’d already written the license number down.
Who would be following Waters to photograph him? I felt pretty certain she wasn’t federal or local law. I also felt certain that he was in trouble of some kind.
‘Ready for another cookie?’
I had to pry my gaze from the street. What the hell was going on? ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ I pointed to the nearly empty pan. ‘You’re beating your best time. It’s been about ten minutes and they’re almost gone.’
‘As I said, that makes me happy. I’m an empty nester. We had three kids and they’re all grown and gone now. This brings them back. Sort of.’
I took a bite. I hoped the hotel food was this good. ‘Did Jim talk about me?’
‘Yes.’ Her brow tightened. ‘He’s afraid you’ll get him fired. I hope that’s not true.’
‘It isn’t. Not in any way.’
She sighed and mimed fanning herself. ‘Whoosh. Good. I’ve gotten to know him over the past month and a half. I just feel sorry for him. He lost his brother in a boating accident three years ago, he told me. But I’m sure it goes back before that. He’s the nerdy boy who tells you how superior he is every once in a while. You know, being defensive. I’ve seen him once or twice try to come on to women around here and it’s painful to watch. People are so cruel to him and he doesn’t know how to defend himself. He’s so down on himself and people sense that and they make jokes about him. A lot of the time to his face.’
‘Has he ever said anything to you about being in trouble?’
She set the last three cookies on a plate then picked up the metal sheet she’d baked them on. ‘That’s a strange question.’ She now took the time to examine me. ‘I don’t know if I should be talking about anything… private.’
‘I’ve spent a little time with him and noticed that he seems worried about something. Innocent question. My name’s Dev Conrad, by the way. I’m working with the campaign for a few days.’
