Breach of Trust

by David Ellis

  “That was fun,” he said. His adrenaline was still flowing from the event. He looked around the cabin for a response, and it didn’t take him long to get it. You were on. They love you. Let’s see Willie Bryant work a room like that.

  “You’re Jason,” he said to me.

  “Nice to meet you, Governor.” And please say hello to my little recording device, which I had nicknamed FeeBee.

  “You, too. Yeah.” He nodded at me. “Like your tie.”

  “Just trying to keep up with Hector.” My former client was into the monochromatic thing these days—today it was a tan shirt and mustard tie.

  The governor looked at Hector and allowed a wry smile. Then to me, he said, “You played ball at State.”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember that game. Your last one. I was there. You went off on that linebacker after that crackback block.”

  I forgot that he’d gone to State as well. Greg Connolly had mentioned it.

  “Then you punched out Karmeier the next day.”

  Jesus, does everybody remember that? Well, Tony was All-Conference and a captain. Apparently I’d carved out a place of infamy at my alma mater.

  “You keeping us out of trouble?” he asked.

  “Doing my best.”

  He drank from his bottle again. “Well, it’s a full-time job if I ever heard one.”

  More appropriate laughter from the posse.

  “You know everyone here?” he asked me.

  Well, let’s see. I’d fully explored your chief of staff’s naked body a couple times now. I kept your buddy Hector from a stint in the federal penitentiary . . .

  “Bill Peshke.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Call me Pesh.”

  I recalled what Chris Moody had said. Peshke was a special adviser to the governor but he was a campaign guy. The strategist. Moody had mentioned a turf battle with Madison Koehler. He was in his mid-forties, on the lean side, polished and plastic. His hair was sharply parted and well-sprayed. His clothes were pretty decent. His smile was robotic and his eyes moved about the limo, like he was looking for a better offer.

  “I’ve heard nothing but good things about you,” he said.

  “Pesh is the one with the PhD,” said Hector. “That means he’s smarter than the rest of us.”

  The governor clapped his hands together. “Where to now?”

  “Darling Theater,” said Peshke.

  I knew that place. It was a small auditorium on the near north side. I saw a concert there once. The Pogues, I think. Back when they had mosh pits. Do they still have those?

  “Right, right. Okay, good, good.” The governor looked at Madison. “What’s Willie doing?”

  “Marinaville,” she said. “Talking about crime and tort reform.”

  “And we have that ad?”

  She nodded as she checked her BlackBerry. “It’s up tomorrow, unless he gives us something today to throw in. It’s running in every major market downstate.”

  When we reached Darling Theater, we were escorted into a side room that I hadn’t known existed. A spread of food lay across some long tables, cold cuts and pastas and fruit. Some others filtered in who were interested in chatting with the governor before he entered the auditorium. Hector and I held back. He seemed interested in being my guide, imparting his expertise to me, the young grasshopper. Also, it didn’t seem like anyone else was particularly interested in conversing with him. The thought crossed my mind once again: What was Hector doing here? I kept falling back on the same conclusion. Window dressing. But it gave me a problem.

  “Willie’s playing to his base,” Hector explained to me. “Downstate, conservative Democrats. He’s been talking more about gun owner’s rights and tort reform, the kinds of things you expect a Republican to talk about.”

  I thought I was supposed to ask, so I did. “Why?”

  Hector shrugged. “He’s made the calculation that it’s how he wins. Moving to Carl’s right is easier than to his left. He’s running against an incumbent. He’s the challenger.”

  “Snow isn’t the incumbent,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter. Everyone calls him Governor. Same difference.”

  That was a popular line around here.

  “Where’s Charlie tonight?” I asked.

  Hector shook his head. He didn’t know. “You like working with him?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “But you still remember who got you here, right?” He said it with a hint of playfulness, an elbow in my side, but he meant it. He wanted the finder’s credit, to the extent I turned out to be an asset to the governor. I wouldn’t be, of course. When everything came down, the last thing anyone would want to do is claim credit for bringing me into the fold.

  But Hector didn’t know that, obviously, and in fact I was doing my level best to keep him at arm’s length. I couldn’t change the fact that he was here, that for some reason the governor kept him around the inner circle. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be a player in the illegal stuff. He hadn’t been in on the conversations with Madison, Mac, Charlie, and me about the supreme court appointment or about getting those jobs for the union guy’s people. Window dressing, like I said. A good face to put forward, but not someone who would be counted on for the wet work.

  “So what do we have you doing?” he asked, as if he were reading my mind, in tune with my concern.

  “Nothing much, yet,” I said.

  He didn’t seem to like that answer. “You and Madison and Mac—you had dinner the other night? You’ve been meeting?”

  “We’ve talked about a few things,” I said.

  “And Charlie, too,” he added. “What, but no one can tell me?”

  “Nothing to tell,” I assured him. I imagined that Chris Moody and Lee Tucker would be none too pleased with my response. I was walling off Hector. I knew what they’d say, what they’d already said about Hector: He’s not your client anymore. He’s as fair game as anyone else. But I just couldn’t see it that way. They were technically correct, but this guy and I had shared his deepest, darkest secrets. I’d stood with him at the abyss, we’d been to war together—choose your metaphor—and no matter what I might have thought of him on a personal level, I couldn’t just shrug off that coat.

  Hector was clearly displeased and clearly trying not to reveal that emotion to me. He wanted in on the good stuff. He wanted to be involved. It was, in many ways, the same-old, same-old with Hector. He wanted respect.

  “Let’s do it!” Governor Snow said to someone. He was wearing a navy suit and red tie now. I hadn’t noticed him changing clothes. Other than Peshke, the entourage held back in this adjoining room as the governor fixed his hair and walked on stage.

  I poked my head into the auditorium and saw the governor doing his hey-nice-to-see-ya-how-ya-doing calisthenics before taking a microphone. I hardly knew the guy, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to know him in the time I had. I was assuming, at this point, that ten days was all I had at the maximum, and possibly as little as a handful of days. How was I going to figure out who was behind the murders of Greg Connolly and Ernesto Ramirez and Adalbert Wozniak?

  “Usually this time of year, when you hear Snow’s coming, it’s bad news,” the governor quipped.

  72

  AFTERWARD, EVERYONE WENT TO A SUITE AT THE Ritz-Carlton downtown. I wasn’t entirely sure why. We were in the city. These people lived here. The governor, as I understood it, had a wife and daughter and a house up here. But maybe they were staying in the mansion in the capital right now.

  The governor put his arm on the couch and looked approvingly around the room. Heady stuff, no doubt, holding the highest office in the state, staying in these lush surroundings, having so much power at your fingertips. He seemed to be basking in it. His tie was pulled down, collar open. Downtime. But he never seemed very far removed from the battery being fully charged.

  Someone set a bottle of scotch on the ornate coffee table and everyone
took a glass. Not my first choice of drink, but this was good stuff, hot and silky.

  “Tomorrow, health care,” said Peshke. “Prescription drugs and universal care.”

  “Great,” said the governor.

  Peshke ran off an impressive agenda for tomorrow. He listed seven stops, mostly up north but some down south as well. Rallies and speeches. Press interviews. Two fundraisers, one at lunch and one in the evening in a wealthy suburb.

  “Holly Majors is asking about House Bill 100,” said Madison. “The abortion bill.”

  Peshke groaned. The governor seemed to slide down in the couch a notch or two.

  “What’s the drop date on that?” he asked.

  “Three days from now.”

  The governor shook his head. “I’ll have to send a thank-you note to Tully and Wermouth,” he said.

  Grant Tully, I assumed he meant by the reference. The senate majority leader. I remembered my talk with Jon Soliday, Tully’s lawyer, who’d tried to talk me out of ever taking a position with the governor’s administration—correctly so, as it happened. From what Jon had told me and from what I’d read recently, there seemed to be no love lost between the governor and the senate majority leader.

  Wermouth, I didn’t know, but I was guessing he was the guy who ran the House.

  Hector, as always, enjoyed his role as my guide through this process. “The House is Republican. They pass a slate of abortion bills every year. This one is parental consent. Teenagers have to get consent for an abortion.”

  “Got it.”

  “And the senate passed it, too, even though they have a Democratic majority. Some people see it as a moderate compromise between the hard lines.”

  “Some people,” said Peshke. “Personal PAC and some of the pro-choice groups, they aren’t ‘some’ people. And they’re our biggest supporters.” He looked at the governor. “Bryant came out again today and confirmed he’d sign the bill.”

  Hector leaned into me. “See, that works for Willie’s base, the downstate vote. They’re in the mushy middle. That puts Bryant on the same page with the Republicans.”

  “And that’s where we should be, too,” Peshke said to me, although I sensed he was really delivering the message to the governor. “The issue becomes a non-issue. Personal PAC has to be with us in the fall. We’re still pro-choice, but with a moderate position. Anything’s better than a pro-lifer in office. And for the people in the middle on this issue, it’s a wash.”

  “But we don’t run in the fall unless we win in March.” Madison, who had been on her cell phone, sat down and joined the discussion. “I don’t like the downstate numbers, Governor. We need the city turnout.”

  “We go to the left of Bryant on this, the downstate numbers will look even worse,” Peshke rejoined.

  “I disagree.” Madison made no pretense of addressing Peshke. She was looking at Snow. “We’re already left of Bryant. Guns? Gays? Forget it. The governor vetoes House Bill 100 and nothing changes down there—we’re still the city liberals to them—but up here, we turn out more.”

  “No. No.” Peshke was shaking his head. “It hurts us more in the general than it helps us in the primary.”

  “You can’t win in the general unless you win the primary, Pesh.”

  “And you can’t win in the general if you sabotage yourself in the primary, Maddie.”

  “All right.” The governor pushed himself from the couch and moved to the window, glass of scotch in hand. “Y’know, it would make my life a whole lot easier if you two could agree on this.”

  Hector leaned into me. “This is exactly what the Republicans want. It’s why they passed the bill so quickly this session. And the senate didn’t do us any favors, either. The governor has to sign or veto this bill within sixty days of receiving it. They knew the deadline would fall in the heat of the primary. They’re trying to put us in a box.”

  “They want us to veto,” said Peshke. “It will make their week. Another lefty city liberal. Edgar Trotter courts the downstate Democrats on this issue in the fall.”

  “I have to win the primary, Pesh.” The governor drained his scotch and breathed out.

  “Governor.” Peshke stood up. “Who even knows how much this will help? If you’re a pro-choice voter, odds are you aren’t a gun lover, anyway. You’re not going to vote for Willie fucking Bryant. And you’re sure as shit not going to vote for Edgar Trotter or whomever the GOP turns out.”

  “They’ll stay home,” Madison said.

  “Bullshit. Bullshit.” Peshke was getting red in the face now. Something about Madison seemed to work him up. The turf battle. There was more than strategy at stake here, I sensed. This was about pride of authorship. “Pro-choicers are some of the most politically active people in this state. They’re not going to vote? Really? They’re going to run the risk that Willie Bryant wins? Governor Snow is better than Willie Bryant to them any day.”

  “They’ll stay home,” Madison said again. “They’ll stay home and hope that we lose. It will send a message. They’re not fucking around. Every Democrat who runs in the future will have learned something. At our exp—”

  “It matters to them that much?” asked the governor. “That much that they’d run the risk of electing the wrong person to prove a point?”

  “I think it does, Governor, yes.”

  He looked back at the group, a gleam in his eyes. “Then let them prove it,” he said. “Let them prove it.”

  “How do they—”

  “What are there—four or five groups of them, Maddie? NOW, Personal PAC, Women for Choice . . .”

  “Right. Freedom to Choose.”

  “Okay, four of them. They want me to take a position that could hurt me in the general? Okay, then they can help make sure I win the general. A hundred thousand from each of them. A hundred fucking thousand from each of them. No more of this staying-neutral-in-the-primary crap. A hundred thousand from each of them. Right now. And then I veto that damn bill.”

  The room was quiet for a moment. Peshke kept to himself, as he’d lost the argument. Madison was thinking through what he’d said. Slowly, she began to nod. “Okay,” she said, with a confidence that felt forced.

  My heart skipped a beat. The U.S. attorney’s office’s collective heartbeat would, too. The governor was now on tape, courtesy of FeeBee in my pocket, instructing his chief of staff to shake down some special-interest groups to purchase a veto.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” The governor’s enthusiasm was growing. “They want me to stick my neck out for them like that? It doesn’t come free. Why should it? Get right on that, Maddie, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you think?”

  I was watching Madison, who looked tired and frustrated.

  “Hey. Hello?”

  Hector nudged me to let me know what I had just come to realize, that the governor was talking to me. “What do I think?” I asked. “I’m just a lawyer, Governor. And not for the campaign.”

  The governor looked at me, then at Madison.

  “He’s handling some issues on the state side, sir.”

  This was an important point to make. If I was a lawyer for the campaign, we might have a problem with the attorney-client privilege, and the conversation I was recording could not be admitted in court. I was just another guy in the room, not the lawyer. Not for this.

  “Okay, well, I’m asking anyway.” Snow looked at me.

  “Okay,” I said. I cleared my throat. “If you want my legal opinion, you can’t make a quid pro quo, one for the other. You can’t say you’ll veto the bill, but only if they give you campaign contributions.”

  Another important point. Now I had made it clear that the issue they were discussing was illegal, and therefore not covered by the attorney-client privilege under the crime-fraud exception.

  The governor stared at me. Nobody spoke. The silence, in this animated room, was deafening.

  “Of course I can,” the governor said. “People can’t give money to c
andidates they support?” He looked at Madison. “What the hell’s he talking about?”

  I was talking about the difference between voluntary and compulsory contributions to a candidate’s campaign. Interesting, how easily the governor was able to wrap a shakedown in the blanket of democracy and freedom of speech.

  “We can work out the details later,” Madison said.

  The governor seemed okay with that. I had the sense that these were the words Madison often used to defuse issues. Snow didn’t want to be bothered by minutiae.

  Thankfully, the conversation segued. Soon, everyone was tired and began to filter out. Madison cast a look in my direction, but what could she say to me? I was right, and I’d been asked a direct question.

  “Hold back, Jason,” the governor said to me. So I did. Madison and Pesh had left, leaving Hector and me with the governor. Hector excused himself, I think to use the bathroom or make a call or something. It was just going to be me and the governor, I guess. A tongue-lashing? A warning to watch what I say? If I’d expected to have any kind of a future with this guy—which is presumably what he thought I wanted—I might have been nervous.

  “Sit, sit.” The governor took a chair and so did I. “Hey, I heard what happened to your family a while back,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear about that. If there’s anything I can do.”

  He’d thrown me, I admit. I’d long become used to such statements, though not recently, and not from a guy who I thought was going to chew my head off.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I’ve got a daughter myself,” he said. “I can’t even imagine. Anyway,” he added, pointing a finger at me, “I’ve heard from Charlie that you’re a great asset. I appreciate everything you’ve done. So keep up the good work, okay? We can do some really good things for you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, we have that thing, right? That death-row inmate?”

  “Antwain Otis, yes, sir.”

  “Make me look good in there, okay?” He winked at me.

  I got up to leave. I looked for Hector, who was talking on his cell in the other room. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to wait for him, but I didn’t bother. I walked out of the suite and nodded to the security detail. I left the Ritz-Carlton and walked into the cool night air, not entirely sure how I was feeling.