But not so far. She had spent hours searching online for information about the CCA, and had surprisingly little to show for it. In state after state, she found the same thing – a web site, and not a lot more. The sites themselves sometimes didn’t have a lot of substance; on a casual inspection, there seemed to be a lot of structure, but when you looked at the actual pages, there wasn’t really much “there” there – just a few, rather general paragraphs per page and lots of links to material at other sites.
How could there be so little substance, and so few news articles about the CCA, even in primary states like New Hampshire? Henry Yazzie had done no advertising and barely any campaigning at all there, but he had stunned the pundits by coming in third. Whether the voters seriously supported his candidacy or simply wanted to torch the traditional party system hardly mattered – someone still had to light the match.
She opened her secure texting account on the Tor network, and sent an email to the private address of her contact at Voldemort:
>Do you hear anything about the CCA?
She returned to combing through news articles. Whenever anyone was interviewed, it always seemed to be someone named Baxter Maxwell. A few local supporters could usually be seen behind him in video clips, but they only waved signs.
And then there were the polls to be explained. If the votes turned out to vary wildly from the polls, people would get suspicious about the credibility of one or the other. Did that confirm that the voting was actually legitimate, or did it confirm that both the voting and the polling had been hacked?
She heard a muted chime and saw that she had received a response:
She responded immediately:
>The Centrist Coalition of America. Does anyone at Voldemort find them suspicious?
>Your department was investigating the pollsters; I thought they might find Yazzie’s success in the primaries to be too good to be true
That was a relief. But why would Voldemort abandon its investigation before it found the identity of the original culprit – the FdL?
Then she had another thought: why had Frank not been told that the inquiry was closed – or perhaps he had? She started typing again:
>Yes? Who made the decision?
>Thanks. Let me know if anything changes
Her thoughts returned to Frank. Did he know what was going on? Shouldn’t he be in the loop, since he reported to Butcher’s office? And if he did know, why had he not told her anything?
The answer to that was not too hard to guess. With a smile, she reminded herself that Frank was after all a pretty timid rabbit, and she had not seen him in a while. She’d have to do something about that, since all her other leads had gone cold.
* * *
Grover picked up his phone, surprised to hear it ringing so early. “Hello?”
“Hey – Dan. It’s Perry. I’m about to hop on a plane but before I did I wanted to check in. How’s it working out with you and Frank?”
“Good – real good, actually. Well, I mean it was a little touch and go in the beginning. Doing a mass-market approach wasn’t what he had in mind. But I’ve convinced him it’s the best way to reach the widest audience possible with his message.”
“Good for you – I’m relieved. How about the story line, character development, that sort of stuff? Is he going to play ball with you on that, too?”
“I think so. I didn’t pull any punches on a couple of sample chapters I gave him. I guess you could say he was a little horrified to start with, but eventually he started to feel a little better about how I was putting him out there.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. He’s a funny guy – on the one hand, he’s pretty prickly about what he thinks he knows. But on the other hand, he’s really hard on himself. As long as I stick to the facts, I think he’ll leave the style and story line pretty much up to me. Even when it doesn’t make him look real great. In fact, I think I’d have a harder time convincing him to let me make him look good.”
“Well, whatever. As long as you get the first draft out on time and the publisher likes it, you’ll make me a happy man.”
“I’m on it.”
“Great – and hey, before I forget it, how’s the social media going?”
“Ah, I think we’re doing okay there, too. We’ve got at least six weeks before the book is available even if the publisher pulls out all the stops, but I’m ramping up.”
“You better! Normally we’d be hitting the gas three months before release. Anyway, if you’ve got Frank tweeting and everything, I’m even more impressed.”
“That’s not what I said. I’m doing the social media thing for him for now – a stealthy tease campaign that doesn’t mention his name. No sense trying to push him through too many knotholes all at once.”
“Probably a good call. Anyway, I’ll leave that to you. See ya.”
Grover was glad Perry hadn’t pursued that topic any further. Grover had unleashed a storm of social media on every platform he could think of, trying to pull together a huge list of followers, all wanting to know what this big blockbuster, based on a true story, would be all about. Of course, that couldn’t work if he was tweeting under Frank’s name. And that was just fine, because it was Grover’s own name that was on everything instead.
* * *
Frank lay flat on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, his brain feeling as if it had mistakenly wandered into a wine press that was being cranked steadily tighter. His senses were also reporting that gravity was pressing down on his body more forcefully than usual, leading him to wonder whether the laws of physics had fundamentally changed overnight. No, he concluded, the more logical explanation was that these unpleasant sensations were somehow related to the volume of beer he’d drunk the night before.
He had already hit the snooze alarm four times. Still, he felt unable to face the prospect of trading his current horizontal orientation for the vertical. Anyhow, did he really have to get up? What would be the point? Grover was going to do all the heavy lifting on the book, and Voldemort hadn’t given him anything new to do since his big discovery. There wasn’t anywhere he needed to be today, or any day for that matter.
Eventually his bladder informed him that a trip to the bathroom was in order. When he could no longer resist, he cautiously levered the upper half of his body into a sitting position. Then he swung his legs out of the bed. Oof.
Feeling shaky, he leaned forward, elbows on knees and head in his hands, reconsidering his planned change in elevation. Maybe he could persuade his bladder to go back to sleep? He noticed that his bottle of aspirin was quite inconsiderately absent from his night table. Clearly all of the objects in his small world were conspiring against him. With a grunt, he stood up, shuffled into the bathroom, and unwisely looked in the mirror.
He wasn’t happy with what he saw. For that matter, he didn’t like the reflection of the messy bedroom behind him, either. He looked down, and noticed a paper bag sitting next to the sink. What could be in there?
He peered in. Right. The Minoxidil, and the hand mirror. He hadn’t gotten around to reading the directions for the former, or been brave enough to make use of the latter. He leaned forward and looked more closely at his bleary eyes, bewhiskered face and disheveled hair in the mirror. Ugh. Another bad idea.
Okay, he thought, grasping the edges of the sink and staring at his binge-battered face in the mirror. Today I’m really going to get my act together.
He opened the medicine cabinet, took out a comb and the aspirin, and put his hair in some sort of order. Then, with new resolve and left-over trepidation, he picked up the hand mirror.
&nbs
p; It took a bit of twisting and many ineffectual gyrations with his hand, because every movement came out backwards in the mirror. But at last he could see the right part of the back of his head. Sure enough, he was looking at a real, honest to goodness, not to be denied, almost completely bald patch of skin right where such an embarrassment usually hid out. Just where its owner couldn’t see it, but everyone else could.
He pushed his face as close as he could to the bathroom mirror, but still couldn’t see the bald spot as well as he wanted to in the hand mirror. Hmm. He fetched his phone from the bedroom and tried to position that just above the bald spot. Then he took a series of pictures while moving it around.
Flipping through the results, he tried to estimate how many follicles per inch were still refusing to surrender. The answer was not many, but perhaps enough to indicate that the battle was not yet totally lost.
While he showered, he wondered what else he should do to get his act together? As he washed his hair, he realized that while it might be close to non-existent in one place, it was pretty long everywhere else. There had been a time when he got his hair cut pretty regularly, back when he still used a paper calendar. He used to have a yellow sticky on it that said “haircut,” and then every time he got one, he’d move the sticky a month ahead.
But one day the adhesive on the sticky had played out, and it started falling off the calendar. One day it disappeared entirely, and he hadn’t gotten around to replacing it. That was ten years ago, and because he hated having to make small talk in the barber’s chair, he had never gotten around to replacing it. After he was liberated from the tyranny of the implacable sticky, it was rare that he got around to having his hair cut more than every two – or three – months. Maybe he should invest in a new sticky?
Once out of the shower, he opened up the Minoxidil box and pulled out a small bottle, an eye dropper, and a piece of paper with instructions. He read the directions, filled the eyedropper, leaned his head forward, and then held the applicator above the back of his head.
Now what? Staring down at the sink, he started squeezing the eyedropper gently while making circles over where he thought the bald spot should be. Soon he felt small rivulets of liquid trickling down both sides of his face. Ugh.
He reflected that there was also the subject of clothes as he shuffled out of the bathroom. He hated buying clothes. Luckily, they lasted a long time. Marla, bless her soul, made a habit of buying them for him at Christmas, for his birthday, and for Father’s day. But now that he’d lost weight, he’d need to get new ones. How was that supposed to happen?
At least he didn’t think he needed to get shoes right now. He hated buying shoes even more than he hated buying clothes. Once, he’d been able to avoid buying a new pair of shoes for eight whole months after one got a hole in it, by buying padded insole inserts at the drug store. By the time winter slush finally put an end to that tactic he’d spent more on shoe inserts than he would have on a new pair of shoes.
He sat down on his bed, feeling overwhelmed. Was he really up for this? Maybe he should just go back to bed.
His phone was buzzing on his night table again, though. He picked it up to check the number. It was Josette! He swiped the screen.
“Hi, Josette. What’s up?”
“Oh Frank, I am glad that I have reached you. What do you think of the latest primary results?”
“Nothing,” or “I have no idea,” would have been honest answers, since he hadn’t bothered to listen to the results the night before. But he didn’t like the sound of either of those options.
“Well, it’s still early in the campaign, so it’s hard to tell very much so far. What do you think?”
“I think the results are very surprising. Would you like to get together to discuss them? I could meet you for dinner?”
“Well, sure, or I guess I should say maybe. Let me check my calendar.” He waited as long as he thought it should take to actually check a calendar, and then said, “Yes, I think I could, say after 6:30. Would that work for you?”
“Yes, yes, that would be fine. Where would you like to meet?”
Frank thought for a moment; he didn’t particularly want to meet in a loud rock club again, but he didn’t want to seem like he was totally out of the stream of real, living people, either.
“How about this – do you like jazz?”
“Oh yes – very much. What clubs do you like?”
He had no idea, as he hadn’t been to hear live jazz in a dozen years.
“Let me check who’s in town, and I’ll email you with a suggestion.”
“Perfect! I will look forward to seeing you!”
Frank hung up the phone. He’d need to go online and find out where people played jazz in town these days. But first he’d need to get a haircut and buy some new clothes.
* * *
30
What a Difference a Date Makes
Frank glanced at his watch for the third time in as many minutes, despite the fact that Josette was not yet late. With his other hand, he pulled the lapels of his new sport jacket a bit closer together against the wind that seemed to be waging a personal vendetta against him. It was definitely overcoat weather, but he didn’t own one that could be worn over a sports jacket. There was a limit to how many clothing stores he could force himself to enter in a single day.
Then he felt a hand on his arm, and turned. Josette looked very different than he had ever seen her before; she wore a stylish, knee-length coat, complemented by a silk scarf, knotted just the way they were in foreign movies. He wondered whether she would try to kiss him on both cheeks, and was greatly relieved when she did not; he was sure he would make a mess of it.
“So good to see you. And I am so glad that you picked this club; I have always wanted to come here.”
He held the door, and followed her inside, where they found two young women chatting at the hostess station. Eventually one turned and noticed them.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes – for two. The name’s Adversego.”
“What an interesting name. Is it Irish?”
He stared at her blankly. “Uh, no, Italian actually. We’re here for the music.”
“Oh – then you’ll want to go downstairs.” She pointed to a doorway to her left and resumed her conversation.
Frank motioned Josette ahead, and followed her down a narrow set of stairs. At the bottom, they were greeted by another hostess. A grand piano and the usual welter of microphones, amps and instruments in stands crowded a low stage at the end of the room.
On the brick walls, the concentrated faces of Dizzie Gillespie, Willie “the Lion” Smith, Dave Brubeck and other jazz greats gazed out from black and white photos, each giving full, if silent, vent to their talents. Frank noticed that each was dated, and realized that the background of every photo matched the room they were in.
He helped Josette remove her coat.
“Ah, you are such a gentleman this evening! My mother would approve!”
Frank was grateful that the low light prevented her from noticing that he was blushing as he held her chair.
His discomfort was less the product of her comment than a reaction to her appearance as revealed when she removed her coat. She wore a casual but smart ensemble that complemented her lithe figure, and the opening at the top of her loose blouse was cut so wide that the material barely had enough purchase to stay on her shoulders. Indeed, from time to time it would slip off one shoulder or the other as they spoke. Sometimes a minute might pass before she unconsciously restored it to its proper position.
She was also wearing makeup for the first time. In the candlelight, her eyes seemed enormous and glittering, especially when she smiled. And she was smiling a lot tonight.
“Before we speak of boring things like politics – you must tell me how
your book goes?”
He frowned as he considered how to answer that question.
“Ah, pretty well. That is, you see, the publisher has been getting very anxious to get the book out as soon as possible − while people still remember what happened. Because I got so diverted by the Voldemort thing, I no longer have enough time to finish the draft and then trade it back and forth with an editor. So we’re sort of combining the two processes into one. Of course, to be fair, he’ll appear on the cover of the book as a co-author.”
“Indeed! That is very generous of you. Do you like him – oh! Or is it her?”
“A him, and yes, mostly.” He caught himself starting to drum his fingers on the table and put his hands in his lap.
“Frankly, it’s very strange seeing things in print that actually happened to me. I guess uncomfortable is a better word. So it helps to have someone else, uh, kind of keep the ball rolling. He nudges me to let things be said that I’d never actually write myself.”
“Yes, I see. And your book – when does it come out?”
“I have a hard time believing it, but in less than two months. Then they’ll want me to go on a promotional book tour.”
“How exciting!”
“Huh! That’s not the word that I’d use. I’ll have to talk to local radio show hosts and do book signings while chugging around the country. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less – doing readings in front of the two people that show up, one of whom is confused and thinks I’m actually someone else.”
Josette giggled. “Book readings? You?”
“Yes – ‘book readings – me.’ What’s so funny about that?”
She put her napkin to her lips as she tried not to laugh again. “I’m sorry − it’s just the picture I’m seeing. You, standing in a book store, reading about yourself to a few little old ladies. It’s just…” She gave up and laughed.
The Lafayette Campaign: a Tale of Deception and Elections (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 2) Page 19
