Up in Smoke

by Charlene Weir

  Even though the D.C. primary was coming up fast, they were pretty cocky about winning there and were discussing a tougher nut. California. It was so big and had such a large population that Garrett couldn’t do there what he did best. Meet people. Shake hands. That meant ads on television and radio, sound bites on local news programs, and column inches above the fold.

  Leon was hammering the importance of dynamite ads in San Francisco and the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. “You get those, you get ninety percent of the vote.”

  He looked around the table to make sure they were all listening. “Battered women, education, and abortion are top of the list for ten percent of the white females most likely to vote.”

  “Whites are a minority in California,” Hadley said. “We need to target the Hispanics and African-Americans.”

  “They don’t vote in primaries. Seventy-five percent of them stayed home at the last primary. Do your math, ladies and gentlemen, that means only twenty-five percent went to the polls. We need to focus on the white folks to decide if the Governor’ll be the party’s candidate. White suburban vote is a big block.”

  “All those Black and Latino voters are going to wonder what’s in it for them,” Hadley said. “To win, you need the nonwhites.”

  “We also need the whites, we can’t alienate them.” Nora said.

  Todd clenched his teeth. Nora pushed herself into these meetings and nobody, not even Todd, dared push her out. The problem was, she was disruptive and got everybody focused on being irritated at her instead of on the topic at hand. She was always throwing out something irrelevant or downright stupid. Or really scary-ass, like the governor should go to the funeral of a black kid. Todd tried to ignore that, but she kept on with it. Todd blew up and said, “Fine, we’ll put that on the back burner.”

  “Now, Todd, I know what that means. You’ll just ignore it.”

  “Nora, we can’t just wait around for some kid to be shot.”

  “Well, just hire someone.”

  Bernie looked at her. A joke? Or was she actually suggesting they get a hired gun to blow away some innocent kid? Leon whistled softly under his breath. We shall overcome.

  Bernie wasn’t a hundred percent sure Nora was joking. A lot of her was invested in this campaign. If the Governor won, she’d be in a catbird seat, ready to snatch and press to her bosom whatever goodies came her way. She’d do a lot in her commitment to the campaign. Nothing about her was likeable, as far as Bernie could see. He’d wondered more than once why she was such a good friend of Mrs. Garrett and why Mrs. Garrett insisted Nora be included in their planning sessions. A stray thought ran through his mind that Nora had some hold on Molly Garrett.

  Nora had thought Wakely Fromm was a handicap and had repeatedly said, “That old drunk costs you votes wherever we go.”

  For the most part, the governor ignored her, but on one occasion when she’d griped too much about Wakely, he’d told her, “Wakely stays. He’s family. You’re Molly’s friend and are here by invitation.”

  Bernie wondered where Nora had been the night Wakely died.

  * * *

  It was late when the meeting was over. Bernie drove Cass home around two-thirty. She yawned and leaned her head against the seatback. “I don’t think I’m cut out for politics. You people never seem to sleep.”

  “If you think we don’t sleep now, just wait.”

  When Bernie pulled up in her driveway, she said, “You think Wakely shot himself?” Preoccupied as she was with her own inner demons she didn’t have much head space for the hellhounds chasing anyone else. If she hadn’t been so self-absorbed, would she have picked up on how unhappy he was?

  Bernie looked at her, his face mostly in shadows, but the porch light lit up one side and the effect was to make him look like a tired harlequin. “I forgot you knew him.”

  “We were friends a long time ago. I never saw him after the fire where he was injured. It must have been hard. He was such a strong giant of a man.”

  “Hard to imagine Wakely a giant.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

  “Cops aren’t letting it go. Makes me feel they have a reason to think maybe somebody else pulled the trigger.”

  She tried to remember what Wakely had said at Eva’s party, something muddled about, “They killed her. They used her. They dumped her.”

  “This whole mess could sink the governor.”

  “Right,” she said. “Keep your eye on the main point.”

  A half-shrug followed by a half-smile. “In politics, nothing else matters.”

  * * *

  Sean waited until the guard went off to take a leak, then walked into the girl’s room. She was asleep, but as soon as he planted himself in a chair, she opened one eye. Terror washed over her face. She started to speak, or maybe scream, winced and put her hand over the bandage at her throat.

  “It’s okay, Arlene,” he said. “My name’s Sean. I’m a magazine writer. I just came to see how you were. I brought you something to read.” He put Dreadful Sorry, Edge, and The Book of the Lion on the bedside table.

  She fumbled for the laptop on the bedside table. Sean helped her get it open and ready on her knees. She tapped in, Storm trooper?

  “The guard?”

  Quick nod.

  “Urgent call of nature. He’ll be right back. And undoubtedly, he’ll throw me out.”

  Got ID?

  “Smart girl.” Sean took out his wallet, removed his driver’s license and placed it against the monitor, put his press pass beside it, then his passport and a picture of Hannah. “My daughter. She’s six. If she were here, she’d tell you I’m a really good guy, if a little slow sometimes.”

  Name’s not Arlene.

  “No? What is it?”

  Moonbeam Melody.

  “Ah. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Melody.”

  What you want?

  He put the four items back in his wallet. “What happened to you?”

  Throat cut by psycho killer.

  “Why?”

  Don’t you want to know who?

  “Yes, but since I only have about thirty seconds, I thought I’d cut to the chase. Do you know who?”

  No. Don’t know why either. Looking for something.

  “What?”

  Don’t know.

  “What did you hear?”

  Stuff being torn apart.

  “Aside from that. Hear anything else?”

  Suddenly she looked startled. News.

  “News? Like a radio?

  She thought a moment. TV. Heard CNN.

  “The television set was on?”

  Little. She turned a hand palm up, as though holding something the size of a deck of cards.

  “Hold it right there! Know a good attorney, Acushla?” Sean said.

  Her minder had returned and had his gun pointed dead center at Sean’s chest. “Hands on your head!”

  Sean winked at the girl as the guard marched him out. In the hallway, he was shoved against the wall, told to spread ’em, patted down and cuffed. Sean got the feeling the guy didn’t get the chance to do this sort of thing very much and was thoroughly enjoying it.

  * * *

  Susan had just gotten to sleep when the phone rang.

  “I get one phone call,” Sean said. “I figured it should go to you.”

  In her sleep-befuddled state, it took her a second or two to figure out where he was and even longer to figure out what was going on. Sean was in jail and wanted her to get him out.

  “What happened?”

  “I was arrested for talking with the Egelhoff girl.”

  “God damn it, Sean, what the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Visiting a sick child, darlin’.”

  “I ought to let your ass sit in jail overnight.”

  “But since you love me—”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  * * *

  “This
is pretty embarrassing,” Susan said.

  “Thanks for the rescue.” Sean gave the pickup fender a pat and climbed in on the passenger side. She fired it up and pointed its nose home.

  He leaned his head back and sighed. “How’d I get here, Susan? Old and cynical and sad.”

  “Cynicism is underrated.”

  “What about sad?”

  “You have too much Irish in your blood not to be sad. How did you get in that hospital room?” She was tired and cranky and sick to the bone of reporters, even if the one in question was Sean.

  “Fatalists is what we are. All the Irish. Full of dark and captivating superstition. And at the same time sentimentally optimistic.” He dropped the accent. “Did Fromm kill himself?”

  She pulled the pickup into the garage and they went into the house. In the living room, she turned on a lamp beside the couch and another by the chair. Sean sat in the chair and switched off that lamp. He removed his shoes, put his feet up on the hassock, leaned back and closed his eyes. “Your underling left his post unguarded while he went to take a piss.”

  She tried to remember who was slated to watch the girl tonight. She’d have his head on a platter.

  “Don’t land on him with both feet. The poor guy thought he was safe enough. He asked the nurse to watch the girl while he was gone, but a crisis came up with another patient.”

  “Why did you want to see the girl? I thought you were here with the Garrett campaign. Does she have any connection to Garrett or the campaign?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Susan sat down on the hassock. “Give me the truth for once in your life.”

  “It’s the truth she wants, is it? Now isn’t that a matter of whose reality it is that it’s filtered through? Not to mention degrees and viewpoints. All in all, isn’t it better to have a well-told tale crafted with colorful exaggerations?”

  “Sean.”

  “Right.” With thumb and index finger he made circles on his eyelids.

  “If you don’t start talking sense, I’m going to take the poker and smack you with it.” Susan grasped a foot and shook it. “Why had you been trying to talk with Wakely Fromm?”

  “Nothing sinister in it. I already told you he interested me. Jack Garrett interests me. I thought I could get another slant on the man. From a guy who wasn’t in the narrow mind-set, hell-bent on creating a successful presidential candidate.”

  “What did you find out?”

  Sean shrugged. “Even in his cups, Fromm didn’t dish out dirt.”

  “Is that what you were looking for, dirt?”

  “Not necessarily. Just looking for what I could find.”

  “And—?”

  “Jack was the greatest smoke jumper and the greatest hero that ever existed on the face of this earth. Fromm would lie down and die for him. Is that what he did?”

  “What did you find out from the girl, Arlene?”

  “She prefers to be called Moonbeam.”

  “Whatever. What’d you get?”

  Sean looked all innocence. “You think if I had any pertinent information, I wouldn’t hotfoot it down to your place of business and spread it on your desk?”

  “Can pigs fly?” She shook his foot again. “Come on. Give.”

  “Anyone who calls herself Moonbeam Melody has God knows what going on in her psyche.”

  “So the kid is a romantic. What did you chisel out?”

  “I don’t know, Susan, I’m getting too old for this. She said her attacker, psycho killer, as she calls him, was listening to the news.”

  Susan frowned. “The intruder turned on the radio?”

  “CNN. He wanted the latest in the political arena before he decided to slash the throat of a fourteen-year-old girl. By the way, what was he looking for in that house?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Do you?”

  “He turned on the television set?”

  Sean shook his head. “He had one of those little ones, the kind you hold in your hand.”

  She punched him in the shoulder.

  “Ouch! What was that for?” He rubbed his arm.

  “What kind of burglar carries a television set with him?”

  “And listens to news,” Sean said.

  “Only political types,” Susan said.

  “They have to do it. They have to keep glued to what’s going on. They can’t help it.”

  “Ah, damn.” She stood up, walked over to the couch and lay on her back. She stared at the circle of light the lamp made on the ceiling. “It was someone with the Garrett campaign.”

  “Most likely. Politics is the bloodiest sport in existence. No holds barred. Distort the facts, create rumors. Accuracy and authenticity get erased by illusion and innuendo. Voters’ needs get tossed on the bonfire that feeds the ego of the candidate.” Sean sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’d hate to see Jack Garrett go down the tubes. I think he’s a good guy.”

  “This isn’t looking good.”

  31

  Casilda wondered what the hell she was doing here, alone in the dark, standing on the tarmac, looking at a dinky little plane that didn’t seem all that safe. Low clouds drifted across the moon and she shivered a little in wind that held an edge of coming winter. The terminal lights made dim smeary haloes in the mist, moths dived frantic death swoops around them. No matter how often she said she was of no use to them, she wouldn’t be here long, Bernie kept giving instructions. And the odd thing was she kept following them. Must be a politician trick. That’s how they got people to vote for them, nudging subliminally.

  Bernie dashed up carrying a backpack and a briefcase. “Sorry, I’m late. You okay?” Transferring the briefcase to the hand with the backpack, he took her arm as though knowing she was thinking of defecting.

  A limo drove up with Jack, Molly, and Nora, followed by the highway patrol and then a town car with Todd and Leon and Hadley. They all trooped up the stairs and into the plane.

  Cass sat next to Bernie. “Tell me again why we’re going to Florida.”

  “Campaigning.”

  “Why am I going?”

  “Keep you involved.”

  The engine sputtered, the plane shuddered and started bumping along the runway. It took off and angled low to the southwest, nosed up through dark space and leveled off. It was a noisy little jet that made conversation difficult. She closed her eyes and must have slept, because the next thing she knew, there was sunshine and they were in Florida.

  Later Wednesday morning, Cass and Bernie, heads together, were watching his handheld television on the patio by the hotel swimming pool. Todd and Leon were crowding behind them trying to see.

  “Turn it up a little.” Todd took off his glasses, held them up to squint at the lenses and put them back on.

  “I am proud to announce,” Senator Halderbreck said, with a politician’s smile, “that former Governor Church Harnes has agreed to endorse my candidacy. Not only endorse, ladies and gentlemen, but he will chair my efforts here in Florida. The citizens of this great state know full well that Governor Harnes has no tolerance for games. He is a man who steps up when he sees a need.”

  “Isn’t he dead?” Leon unpeeled the wrapper from a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth.

  Cass squinted at the tiny television as Harnes stepped up to the microphone. Tall, with dark piercing eyes, hawk nose, heavy eyebrows, dark suit. He looked like a religious fanatic or a guru seeing visions after twelve days of fasting.

  “Governor,” a cookie stuck a microphone in his face, “what brought you back to politics after all this time?”

  “There is a serious need here. Electing a president. President, ladies and gentlemen. We are in the business of choosing the most powerful man in the world. What this country needs is a serious candidate, one that can step right into that position and take charge. Some of you may remember a few years back when Florida was notable, some might say notorious, in electing the president. This time, we need to get involved
ahead of time.”

  A ripple of laughter.

  “Governor, what do you think of Jackson Garrett? You think he can step in and take charge, if he’s elected?”

  “The only place he’s going to step is down. You think we can get the authorities to charge him with that?”

  When the laughter cooled, he said, “Seriously, I know that Governor Garrett is a good man but, friends, good just isn’t good enough and we have an outstanding man right here.” His hand groped around a bit in search of the outstanding man he was hawking to the crowd and clamped on Halderbreck’s sleeve. He dragged Halderbreck forward and threw an arm around his shoulder. Halderbreck looked rather anemic next to Harnes’s flamboyance.

  “This man. He’s willing to tell it like it is, straight, no political double-talk.”

  “Senator, are you considering Governor Harnes as a running mate?”

  “Too soon, folks, too soon,” Halderbreck said. “I only got him to agree to this much last night, but, I gotta tell ya, this is the caliber of man the Halderbreck administration wants.”

  “Hey, hey, hold on there. You only paid me for today.” Governor Harnes cuffed Halderbreck playfully on the chin, then turned serious. “But I’m going to be out there telling the American people this is the man we want in the White House.”

  Todd’s cell phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah, Governor, we just saw it. Same old bullshit … no … no … yeah … later.”

  “Why isn’t Harnes running?” Cass said.

  “Well, sweetie, that’s politics,” Todd said.

  “Do you think it’ll make any difference down here?” Bernie turned off the tiny television and stuck it in his backpack.

  “When did an endorsement make a difference?”

  “What did the governor think?” Leon asked.

  “He didn’t see it, he was off listening to bible thumpers. Now, if Harnes is going to be telling the American public who to vote for, how come he’s just now getting into camp?” Bernie said.

  “Who knows,” Todd said.

  “Does it matter?” Cass asked.

  “Fuck, yeah, it matters. Anything these assholes do gets my attention.”