If Men Were Angels

by Reed Karaim

  Crane stood and walked to the hotel room’s glass wall, contemplating the banal geometry of the streets below.

  “Tim Tim. Yes yes. They play hardball. It’s total war . . . Please.”

  “All we want to do is film two spots,” Blendin said. “So they can go on the air quickly if they’re needed.”

  Crane had been troubled by a problem stomach since he was a child. He couldn’t handle junk food or meals at midnight, and he had been losing weight during the eight months he’d been on the road. When he stood against the window Duprey could see his shirt hanging on his shoulders. It was a beautiful shirt, carefully tailored to leave those shoulders looking fuller than they were. Duprey thought about how careful Crane was about his appearance. He remembered seeing Crane backstage, holding in his right hand what appeared to be a dove. He held it at his waist, considering a pair of fallen white wings while the applause mounted, and only when he stuffed it hurriedly into his pants pocket before stepping out did Duprey realize this indecision had been about whether to wear a pocket handkerchief.

  “What do you think, Angie?”

  His wife looked up from the pages in front of her.

  “You don’t have to use everything you bring into the courtroom. But it’s nice to have it all there if things go haywire.”

  Blendin slammed his beer on the table. “Exactly right.”

  Crane stared out the window and I wonder what he thought. So many cities. So many anonymous landscapes. “Texas,” he said. “An amazing state. At the Battle of San Jacinto, Sam Houston and his troops defeated thirteen hundred Mexicans. Caught them by surprise. You know how many prisoners they took?”

  Duprey stroked his beard. “That first night? None.”

  Crane smiled. “We have a son of the Lone Star State in our midst. That is correct. None. At the time, a few newspapers denounced them for having descended to savagery. It turns out they were just ahead of their time.”

  He placed a hand on the glass briefly and returned to the table, stopping behind his wife, putting a hand gently on her shoulder. The familiar melancholy slipped from his face in a stiffening of the jaw, a thinning of his mouth, until he considered them with a strangely blank composure.

  “It has been my experience that no ad filmed for a campaign ever goes unused,” Crane said. “But go ahead.”

  We moved across the South. I followed along and wrote what I had to write and waited for the nights when Robin had dispensed with the day’s final crisis, and she slipped through my unlocked door, and we entangled ourselves in a succession of motel rooms that linger in my mind today in the smells of industrial laundry soap and cheap disinfectant, in phantom coughs through threadbare walls, the slamming of doors in my dreams, the murmur of televisions at dawn. It was too dangerous for me to come to her room—staffers could be interrupted at any moment—so I waited on a string of beds like life rafts, sometimes falling asleep, and then surprised by her hands sliding up my back, long fingers pushing themselves through my hair before I turned around and felt her shivering warmth as she slipped in beside me, then her mouth, arriving in a rush, without more than a word. The nights were separate from the days and from the formal pretense that we had managed to become friends, nothing more. The days passed and only rarely did I let myself dream of a time when we could settle into someplace for more than a night and our future would unfold like a brightly colored map. I saw all the things you see on that map, a house and kids and a riding lawn mower and beat-up loafers and the Sunday paper and fruit in a bowl on the kitchen table, the whole damn thing. All of it. But I knew it was a mistake to let myself see such things in the sunlight.

  The days were when we did our jobs. Robin had hers and I had a course I had set myself on much earlier. And so, when our southern swing took us to Atlanta, I went to Fulton County Stadium, where my ticket was waiting at the Will Call window.

  Latrelle Gregory was already in his seat. Ponderous clouds were piling up in the evening sky and the air was humid and still. We were seated halfway up the second deck, the stadium hanging around us in artificial midday like a giant dog-food bowl, a soulless, utilitarian artifact. The field glimmered green and geometric below; the players looked like children’s action figures lost in the expanse.

  “Clifford, I feared you might not make it.”

  His beer rested comfortably in a childlike hand on his knee. He wore a lavender knit shirt and pressed khakis, the shirt a little too tight and the pants a bit too short. His face gleamed as if we were sitting in the sun and I could see his scalp through dancing wisps of calcified hair. He smiled at me.

  “Los Bravos, as we call them here, are ahead three nothing. The Mets have already committed one grievous error, thus lending a particular joy to the evening for the home folks, who do dearly love to see all Yankees, and New York Yankees in particular, embarrassed whenever possible.”

  The beer vendor’s harsh call echoed up the seats and I waved at him.

  “How sad for you then,” I said, “that you have to settle for the Mets.”

  Gregory nodded and sipped his beer.

  “How true.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I have eaten some, Clifford. I have not eaten all I intend.”

  “I’ll buy you whatever you recommend as a specialty of the house.”

  “I believe I’m drinking the specialty of the house.”

  The beer vendor arrived at the end of our row. “Two,” I said, and after money and beer had been exchanged, I settled into my seat in time to see a Met ground out to second. The fans around us applauded without fervor.

  “Thanks for the ticket,” I said.

  “Comps, actually. But you’re certainly welcome. I’m afraid we might get rain.”

  “You a serious fan, Latrelle?”

  “I love the Braves, Clifford. They have more money than anyone else, a mad tycoon of an owner, they buy the best players, and they win all the time. They are the embodiment of my nation’s spiritual essence and I embrace them.”

  “You want to watch the game for a while?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  I told him what Kelly and I had discovered about Crane and Roger Bushmill. When I finished he was smiling. He sipped his beer.

  “That is a name I thought might show up.”

  “You know him?”

  The batter snapped a line drive to left center and the runner on second wheeled around third. The crowd stood as he launched himself toward the plate, the ball arriving on a line that terminated in a cirrus of dust and flailing limbs. Gregory waited until the cheers had died and we were seated again.

  “Mr. Roger Bushmill. Mr. Roger Bushmill visited our offices a few times. I would say Mr. Bushmill was greeted very cordially. Mr. Bushmill had a problem with the disposal of certain chemical byproducts used in his manufacture. I can’t for the life of me tell you what they were, but disposing of them was a touchy business and Mr. Bushmill needed a waiver of EPA regulations concerning storage of those byproducts at his plant site. I believe you will find that a young congressman, Thomas Crane, helped Mr. Bushmill with this problem, arranging a meeting in his office between EPA officials and Mr. Bushmill’s people. After which, the EPA did see fit to grant a waiver. I believe you will also find that young Congressman Crane had spoken out forcefully during his campaign on the need for greater vigilance when it comes to the environment, but saw the error of his ways after meeting with the providential Mr. Bushmill.”

  Gregory tilted his paper cup back, swallowing until a rivulet of beer ran down his chin. He let the cup fall to the cement, where he crushed it underfoot.

  “Of course this was very long ago, and the problem is long gone.”

  When we had been talking about other things Gregory had spoken boisterously, but when we turned to Crane he spoke in a subdued and reasonable tone, the kind of voice that does not demand attention, and I noticed his accent grew less distinct.

  “I could provide you with dates and times, all off the record, of
course, should you wish.”

  Thunderheads towered at the far rim of the stadium, a reef of flickering darkness. We were between innings and the crowd milled down the stairs with their eyes on the sky.

  “Was there any further problem?” I asked finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was there any further problem with the stuff they stored? Did anything happen?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Was there a discernible quid pro quo? Was there something said that indicated an obligation on Crane’s part that went beyond what he would have had to help any well-heeled employer in his district?”

  Gregory rubbed a soft bead of sweat above his upper lip.

  “Clifford, you give me a name and I tell you what I know. He didn’t treat everyone like Mr. Bushmill. You forget he was a congressman of integrity, Saint Thomas, the pure.”

  I watched the first batter for the Mets settle lethargically into the batter’s box, stalling for time, hoping for the rain. Gregory sat beside me quietly.

  “What is this, Clifford, a change of heart?”

  “You know, Latrelle, I don’t think I ever mentioned it, but my name isn’t actually Clifford.”

  The first batter filed out with an underwater thunk. Half the seats around us were empty, their occupants inside, waiting for the storm.

  “I’m sorry, Latrelle,” I said. “There is nothing at the core of this. It started because I couldn’t understand two trips back to Berthold and then it became something else and now it’s this and there’s still nothing at the center of it all. No proof of anything. Nothing. No thing, where you know suddenly what’s going on, where you see what it’s all about, even if you can’t prove it . . . I’ve seen reporters do this. We hypnotize ourselves. We stare into the bushes long enough and we convince ourselves there has to be a snake in there. And pretty soon we’re seeing a snake every time a shadow moves. And it’s just bullshit.”

  Gregory turned to face me.

  “Clifford. Cliff. I was not aware it was your responsibility to answer every question you raise. I thought it was enough that the questions themselves be legitimate. There are reporters who would write based just on what I’ve told you about Bushmill.”

  I stared at the field, colored now with a strange Mediterranean light.

  “Have you gone back to Berthold?” Gregory asked quietly.

  The batter had stepped out of the batter’s box and the players were all looking at the far end of the stadium.

  “No.”

  “Then maybe the answer is at the starting point.”

  The rain began falling in big fat drops. The few people still around us fled toward the tunnels. Gregory held a hand over his eyes as if squinting into the sun.

  “You fear you will destroy a good man,” he said. “But he is what he truly is, not what he appears to be in a nineteen-inch box, not what he becomes when the fools in your trade trip all over themselves because he’s something new. Politics is only bearable when the frauds come with a wink, or end up with a prison sentence, Cliff.”

  My anger was gone. It felt like some distant storm I had watched along the horizon, something that had nothing to do with me.

  “Everyone’s a fraud, Latrelle,” I said. “Look at you. You’re pretending to like baseball.”

  They were pulling the tarp across the infield. Gregory watched them with a pensive, doubtful expression, biting his lower lip in a fashion that made him look like a school boy about to be punished. He reached into the pocket of his baggy shorts and pulled out a small envelope, holding it beneath his cupped hand and his wrist to keep it dry.

  “I was uncertain about this,” he said. “I still am.”

  He slid the envelope into my lap, still shielding it with his hand.

  “Don’t open it in the rain,” Gregory said. “Don’t ask me to say another word about it. You can’t use it directly. You can’t make it public. I don’t know how you got it. I don’t know where it came from. It never comes up again. If you have any hesitation on these ground rules then I am afraid it goes back in my pocket.”

  “You know I can’t promise any of that without knowing what it is.”

  “It’ll be quite obvious. You’ll see it’s all right. And I give you my word it’s genuine.”

  “What is it, Latrelle?”

  “You remember when I said there was a third trip to Berthold? This is from then.”

  He lifted his hand slowly from the envelope and I covered it with my own when the first drops spread gray stains across the paper. He stood up, hunching against rain falling now with a heavy slap.

  “Come on! Even Yankees know enough to get in out of the rain.”

  “In a minute. I’ll meet you inside the tunnel.”

  He stood there for a moment, his hand above his eyes, his shirt sticking to his belly like the skin of an overripe melon. He watched me push the envelope deep inside my pocket and shrugged.

  “Cliff. Clifford. You folks up north have always taken yourselves too seriously.”

  The real rain arrived after he left, blowing up the stadium in a billowing curtain that hit like a waterfall, washing the world away in a roar that drowned all without judgment or clemency. I sat alone among fifty thousand empty seats, my head back, my eyes open, and let it pummel me until I was blind.

  IV.

  THE ENVELOPE held a blurred copy of a phone bill, dozens of pages listing calls from Crane’s Senate office in Washington. There were too many numbers to track down, and I sat on the edge of my bed and flipped through the pages with a growing sense of futility until I came to the credit card calls. This is from the third trip to Berthold.

  The bill listed both the numbers from which Crane had called and the numbers he had dialed. I could trace his trip from the airport in Springfield to Berthold. He called the office back in Washington once when he arrived; then he tried a number in southern Illinois. I recognized Berthold’s area code. Half an hour later he tried the number again from a different location. I picked up the phone by the bed and dialed. The phone rang half a dozen times.

  “You have reached the Clark County Clinic. Our hours are from nine to five. In an emergency please call . . .”

  I listened to the message twice and hung up. He had called about seven years ago. The number could have changed. It was a clinic—why would the number change? Had his brother been in for treatment? It could have been Bill Crane or a cousin or an old friend or he could be part of an organ-running ring stealing kidneys from baby children. There was no way to know.

  I put the bill in my bag and unpacked tomorrow’s clothes. I plugged in my cell phone and computer, making sure the battery had discharged completely first. I called and got my wakeup call, and it was only when I was lying in bed, watching the red numbers click down on the bedside clock that I felt the dead weight of not knowing. What could a clinic in Berthold have to do with a chemical manufacturer? What could it have to do with Crane? A politician rushes home three times. The first two are just before he runs for office. The third time he stops on the way and calls a clinic twice. He was very poor once. He made money. He has a wealthy friend. The friend helped him long ago. Did he help the friend? If so, so what? Did he break the law? Why did he go home? Why did he lie about it? Did he lie about it? Each thought slid and turned like a fleck of light in a kaleidoscope, but nothing coalesced. Watch long enough and you will almost always find a pattern, but I could see no design, only the reassuring sprawl of chance as the clock clicked down and Robin did not knock on my door and I waited and waited and fell asleep dreaming of an endless line of telephones, each ringing and then falling silent just as I reached it.

  When I pulled back my drapes the next morning the parking lot was bathed in light, and I had that illusory early morning feeling of acute clarity of perception. The world seemed as bright and uncomplicated as a child’s watercolor. We checked out, rode our buses to the airport and waited on the tarmac for Crane. The time before the first flight was always one of
the best, a chance to sip coffee and enjoy the day, knowing that responsibility still lay hours distant. Robin was nowhere to be seen. Staff and reporters chatted in small circles, but I stood by myself near the wing, enjoying the sunlight and the rain-washed air. The less sleep you have the brighter the morning’s brief illumination of the mind, and I felt brilliantly clearheaded.

  At the foot of the stairs leading into the tail of the plane, a Secret Service dog was digging in Myra’s bag. Its wet nose slid across her notebooks, its wet tongue dug past her sweater. It snuffled, growled and pulled a curl of sausage out of the bottom of the bag.

  Myra stared at the sausage in astonishment, then glanced wildly around the plane. I heard Nathan laughing underneath the other wing.

  Standing in a ragged line at the edge of the tarmac, reporters and staff held cellular phones to their ears, sharing gossip with distant friends. I knew I should call my editor, but I sipped my coffee and watched a biplane steer across the edge of the sky, trailing a banner advertising Ford trucks.

  I strolled to the back of the plane, where Myra paged through a pocket notebook, making a face as she separated pages sticky with German Shepherd saliva.

  “Did you see what happened?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m a cat person myself,” she said. “No self-respecting, professionally trained, federally employed cat would debase itself sniffing around for a dried-up hunk of pork.”

  “Have you and Nathan considered a truce?”

  Myra closed the notebook in disgust and bent it in two to mark it for the trash can.

  “Not now, for God’s sake. Besides, what else is there to keep us interested?”

  Randall Craig strolled up, immaculate in a blue suit, gray shirt and striped tie.

  “She’s right,” he said. “What else is there? Did you see this morning’s New York Times?”

  “The dog ate my Times,” Myra said.

  Craig shrugged as if nothing he failed to understand could be too interesting. “Crane’s up nine. He’s even up down here in Dixie.”