The Power Broker

by Stephen Frey

  “I’ll have it out tomorrow.”

  Hewitt smiled. “Don’t worry, Christian, we’ll get something done. Maybe I’ll even stretch on the price, give you a little more than what you deserve so you’ve got an incentive to help me get this library. Just don’t tell my shareholders.”

  “Believe me, Samuel, if you buy Laurel Energy from me at a decent price, I’ll get you your library and I’ll never say a word.”

  “Probably fund it yourself out of what you personally net from the Laurel sale.” Hewitt winked, like he figured he was exaggerating.

  But actually, he wasn’t too far from the truth. “I hear you’re a poker player,” Christian said.

  “That I am,” Hewitt answered enthusiastically.

  “Well, if you’re ever in New York, I know where you can get a good game.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, a friend of mine on the Upper West Side runs it. Pretty high stakes and good players. You’d like it. I’d be more than happy to take you one night.”

  “Thanks, son. Might take you up on that.” Hewitt pointed at Christian and leaned forward in his chair. “What we should do is have you come to my ranch outside Dallas. I’ll get a couple of the boys from town, and we’ll have one of those all-night games. Scotch, good cigars, big pots.”

  “Love to.” He wouldn’t drink any Scotch, but he might smoke a cigar. Most important, he’d have that time with Hewitt. Suddenly, the sale of Laurel Energy was looking good. Things changed so fast sometimes.

  Hewitt started to get up. “Well, Christian, it’s been a pleasure to—”

  “Do you have a few more minutes, Samuel?” Christian had been thinking about whether or not to bring this up with Hewitt since they’d first sat down. Since the older man had admitted knowing Clayton. “There’s something I’d like to run by you.”

  Hewitt sank back into his chair. “Of course. What’s up?”

  Christian took a few moments to collect his thoughts, making certain he wanted to do this. “I need you to keep this quiet.” Instantly, he regretted saying that. After all, he was the one who’d brought it up.

  Hewitt shut his eyes and nodded, silently mouthing the word “okay.” Like it was already understood that everything they discussed was confidential, but if Christian needed to hear it, fine.

  “Jesse Wood is going to ask me to be his running mate if he wins the Democratic nomination in July,” Christian explained. “He’s going to ask me to be his vice president.”

  Hewitt’s mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”

  Christian grinned. “No, I’m not.”

  “Jesse Wood is a Democrat,” Hewitt snapped, his friendly demeanor souring.

  Christian hadn’t been ready for so strong a response. “Right.”

  “Your father was a Republican,” Hewitt said, his voice rising. “A damn fine one, too. And he—” He stopped abruptly, holding up one hand and shaking his head. “This isn’t fair,” he said, his voice dropping back to normal. “I made an assumption, and I shouldn’t have. I’ve got to get used to this new world we live in.”

  But the party issue was bothering Christian, too. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that,” he admitted, still surprised by the intensity of Hewitt’s reaction. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about my meeting with Wood. I wanted to get your opinion on me running as a Democrat. People will expect me to run as a Republican, especially people in California.”

  Hewitt hesitated. “Well, I’m a Republican, been one since the day I was born, and I’m proud of it. Of course, you probably already knew that.”

  Christian nodded.

  “Don’t hold it against me, but I think people should work for a living.”

  Christian started to say something, but Hewitt cut him off.

  “I’m just kidding, I understand the need for another party.”

  “Actually, I think there’s a need for a new party. One that’s fiscally responsible but helps people get back on their feet when they’re down. But I’ve got to work within the system right now. Maybe down the road, though.”

  Hewitt smiled. “Already talking like a politician.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the idea of a third party for a long time, Samuel.”

  Hewitt took a deep breath. “Look, from everything I can tell, you’d make a tremendous contribution to this country, no matter what ticket you run on. You make an incredible first impression, you’re a deep thinker, you have great experience running a lot of large entities—in one week you probably deal with more stress than most people do in a lifetime—and, from what I hear, you really care about people.”

  “Thanks, Samuel.” Christian liked the man more and more. He knew that had been a hard thing for a die-hard Republican to say, but Hewitt had sucked it up and said it anyway. “Could I call you from time to time for advice? I’d never let on that you were advising me, I’d never tell anyone because I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your Texas GOP friends. But I could really use your counsel.”

  Hewitt nodded. “Of course, Christian.”

  “Call me Chris.”

  Hewitt nodded again. He was silent for a few moments, then he looked up. “So, you going to accept Wood’s offer?”

  FORTE RECLINED into a comfortable easy chair as Johnson slid an unmarked CD into a DVD player sitting on top of the eighty-inch screen. He’d always liked the way CDs disappeared smoothly once the machine felt them. Just another modern marvel. “How many more copies of this thing are there, Heath?”

  “Three more, boss,” Johnson answered, sitting on a sofa in front of the screen. “All stored in safe deposit boxes around Los Angeles. I’ve got one set of keys to the boxes, you’ve got another, and there’s a third in the safe at your beach house.”

  “Right.” Forte remembered now.

  “There’s also a list of the banks and box numbers in that safe.”

  “Good.”

  They’d come to Johnson’s house so he could finally see the clip. It had been a hectic morning and they’d decided they needed a break, but they didn’t want to do this at the office. Too risky—someone might come in unexpectedly. Safer at Johnson’s house which was only a few miles from the office. Johnson’s kids were in school and his wife was out shopping. They wouldn’t be discovered.

  “You’re not going to believe it when you see it,” Forte said.

  “Where was it shot?” Johnson asked, picking up a drink off the table in front of the sofa, not taking his eyes from the screen.

  “Backstage after a press conference in Washington,” Forte explained.

  “When?”

  “Not quite a year ago.”

  “Good, it’s recent.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Forte confirmed. “It’s not like Jesse could say it happened years and years ago, and he doesn’t feel this way anymore. People will get it.”

  The screen cleared and images appeared, murky at first, then sharper and sharper as the camera zoomed in.

  “There he is.” Forte pointed excitedly toward the right side of the screen.

  “I see him, boss,” Johnson acknowledged. “That’s Jesse, no doubt.”

  The camera focused on Wood, who was standing with Clarence Osgood, Stephanie Childress, and another man.

  “Who is that guy?” Johnson asked, taking a sip of soda. He’d known Osgood and Stephanie for a while so they were familiar to him right away. “He looks so damn fa—” Johnson banged the sofa. “Now I remember. That’s Jefferson Roundtree, that activist minister from Philly.”

  “Nut job from Philly is more like it,” Forte said. “We don’t want Jesse anywhere near him now, don’t want Jesse seen with him at all because he scares the crap out of whites. But he served his purpose here,” Forte added quietly.

  “Boy, it’s a nice clear shot of Jesse—”

  “Shh! Here it is, here it is.” Forte picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

  The camera panned in on Wood’s handsome face as he turned to Roundtr
ee. “Yeah, that Jew from CNN was such a prick,” Wood said, smirking, “asking me about my voting record on civil rights.”

  “You got it, brother,” Roundtree agreed heartily. “Like any cracker should have the nerve to ask you about that.”

  Osgood and Stephanie nodded.

  Then there were a few muffled words, but nothing audible.

  Johnson looked over at Forte. “If we get this disk to the right people, we might be able to pick up what they just said. I know some people who’d help us and never say a word.”

  “I wouldn’t trust anyone with this, even those people.”

  “No, these guys are—”

  “It won’t be necessary, believe me,” Forte interrupted again, pointing at the screen. “Keep watching.”

  There was more muffled chatter, then Wood held his hands up.

  He said, “You know, I had to put up with so much crap from Whitey when I was playing tennis back in the day, it was ridiculous. Real bullshit stuff, too. Tennis racquets busted while I was in the shower, no towels, the worst locker, called nigger all the time, even by the help.” He looked over at Osgood. “I’m telling you, Clarence, if I get elected president, I’m gonna act the way I’m supposed to act in front of the camera. Smile and dance like a good black man, do what I’m expected to do like a good boy. But behind the scenes, I’ll fuck Whitey, and I’ll fuck him good, I really will.”

  “You go, man,” Roundtree encouraged. “I’m with you all the way. Every black man will be.”

  Stephanie held her hand to her mouth to hide a smile.

  Wood glanced down at her and touched her thigh. “It’s gonna be fun, isn’t it, Steph?”

  Forte paused the disk. “Did you see that?” he asked sharply.

  “See what?”

  “Jesse putting his hand on Stephanie’s thigh. It was just for a second, but he did it.”

  Johnson shook his head. “No, I didn’t catch it.”

  Forte played the segment back. “There, see?”

  “Oh, yeah, uh-huh.”

  “Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “Very.”

  “Do a little work on that, will you, Heath? I know they had something a long time ago, but I want to know if it’s started up again.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  “Good. All right, here we go.” Forte restarted the clip.

  Stephanie looked up at Wood. “Oh, yes, it’s going to be incredible. And I’d love to see you do anything you can to put whites in their place.”

  “I’d use all my powers to do to them what they did to us,” Wood promised. “I’d even—”

  At that moment Osgood happened to look up, directly into the camera.

  Suddenly there was nothing on the screen but the floor tiles bouncing around as the cameraman took off, realizing he’d been seen. Then the screen went dark.

  “What do you think?” Forte asked, stopping the disk.

  Johnson chuckled. “I think Jesse’d rather sleep in elephant shit every night for a year than have this thing get into the hands of the news networks. It would kill his campaign, probably his marriage, too.”

  Forte smiled widely. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said smugly. “When he sees this, the good senator will do whatever I want him to do. He’ll be right where I want him: in my back pocket.”

  CHRISTIAN LEANED BACK in his chair and gazed at the ceiling of his office. His eyes stung and his temples throbbed. This business with the SEC couldn’t have come at a worse time. He could just see Jesse Wood announcing him as the vice presidential candidate, then Vivian Davis announcing her investigation of CST the next day. Working his name into the press conference, somehow inferring that he was culpable. That was how she’d get the most mileage out of the announcement. And that would be a nightmare of epic proportions, even when he was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. By then, the court of public opinion would have already made its decision: guilty by association.

  Nigel was sitting in front of him, holding his tie up, dabbing at a small stain on it. Ice cream, Christian thought to himself, probably rocky road. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “Remember that guy who was here yesterday.”

  “Osgood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about him?”

  “He came to tell me that Jesse Wood is going to ask me to be his running mate.”

  Nigel’s tie fell back to his shirt. “You’re fucking shitting me, chap.”

  Something about the response made Christian want to crack a smile, but he just nodded.

  “That’s incredible.” Nigel stood up and shook Christian’s hand. “Incredible. Like I said, the man in demand.” A curious smile came to his face as he sat back down. “Jeez, I’ve known you for years, and I just realized I didn’t even have a clue that you were a Democrat. Honestly, I thought you were a Republican. I don’t know why I assumed that, but I did.” Nigel waited for a response, but there wasn’t one. “Are you going to accept?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but, if I do, obviously there are lots of implications.”

  “I’ll say,” Nigel agreed loudly. “We’ll need a new chairman here at Everest. That’s the biggest implication for me.”

  “Yup.” Christian saw the wheels already spinning a million miles an hour inside Nigel’s head.

  “You won’t have time to groom a protégé. The convention’s not that far off.”

  Christian nodded wearily. He’d tried to groom one a couple of years ago, but it hadn’t worked out.

  “Are you going to bring someone in from the outside?” Nigel asked hesitantly, fiddling with his tie again.

  “No.”

  The Brit’s eyes got big and Christian saw him swallow hard, like he wanted to ask the next logical question, but couldn’t bear to do it. The answer might be no. “If Jesse Wood asks me to be vice president, if I accept, and if he wins the Democratic nomination, then I’ll name an interim chairman. If Wood and I win in November, then that person will become the permanent Everest chairman.” Christian watched the enormity of what he’d just laid out sink in. “The interim chairman is going to be you…or Allison.”

  Nigel looked up, fire in his eyes. “I’d do a good job, better than she would.”

  “You both would do a good job,” Christian said firmly. “The reason it’s a tough decision for me is that you both have very different skill sets. You’re a details guy, Nigel, you make sure things run around here.”

  “I’ve had to. It’s what you wanted me to do.”

  “On the other hand, Allison’s a big-picture thinker. Not that you aren’t—she’s just been at it longer, basically since she came out of the womb. She’s got a hell of a lot of connections, too.”

  “And she’s going back to her family in Chicago when this fund is finished. Don’t forget that.”

  “And you could take another job tomorrow and be out of here.”

  “You know I’m not going to do that, Chris,” Nigel snapped. “I’m here for good. I’m as loyal as anybody could be. Allison’s the one with other loyalties. Her plan has been to go back to Chicago all along.”

  Nigel was right: that had been her original plan. Something Gordon Meade had gone out of his way to remind Christian of at dinner. But now Christian wasn’t sure Allison really wanted to go back to Chicago as much as she had when she first came to Everest. She’d taken quickly to New York City’s nightlife, and he knew that in the back of her mind she was as curious as he was about what might happen between them. Clearly, Meade wasn’t sure Allison wanted to come back to Chicago now, either. Christian had seen that in Meade’s expression the other night when Allison snapped at him.

  Of course, Allison had volunteered to Meade how poorly the Laurel Energy sale was going—bad form if she was going to be loyal to Everest. And she hadn’t mentioned that she knew Trenton Fleming—knew him pretty well it turned out. When he’d quizzed her about it after their meeting with Fleming and Inkster, she’d see
med guarded. Just a feeling, but that was enough for him to think twice. And he didn’t want to have to think twice about the person he named the next Everest chairman.

  “Look, Nigel, a lot of things have to happen before we get to the point of me naming an interim chairman, so don’t worry about it yet. I just wanted to let you know it was on the horizon, that’s all.”

  “You’re fucking with me, chap, that’s what you’re doing. What are the odds Jesse Wood will ask you to be his vice president?”

  “Seventy-five percent.”

  “You’re always conservative when we do this kind of thing, so we’ll bump that to ninety-five percent. What are the odds that Wood gets the Democratic nomination?”

  Christian thought about that one for a few moments. “Sixty percent. He’s got a lot of momentum.”

  “We’ll put that one at eighty, no ninety. Everything I read says he’s about to win two more primaries and that’ll put him over the top. So, then what we’re really saying when we break it down is this: Will you accept the slot when he asks you? If you do, then you’ll have to name an interim chairman who would become permanent if you and Wood win in November. It’s really under your control.” Nigel paused. “So?”

  Christian considered his response for a moment. “If this SEC thing spins out of control, I might not even have a chance to accept. Worse, if I do, and then it spins out of control, well…” He didn’t finish. That scenario was too painful to even think about.

  “YOU GET THE CALL? ” Kohler asked, checking the tombstones. This time they were meeting in a church graveyard.

  McDonnell nodded. “Yeah, I’m leaving in the morning.”

  “How you getting there?”

  “Driving to Augusta.”

  “Not flying?”

  McDonnell shook his head. “I want some time to think. I think better in the car. How about you?”

  Kohler hadn’t made any plans yet. “Look, are you going to be with me in the meeting or not?” McDonnell was showing signs of weakness, of backing off on his promise to support. “I need to know.”