The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller)

by Andrew Delaplaine

  “Even though he’s a Democrat, right?” said Brian.

  “They don’t like to talk about that,” Leon smiled. “That’s a taboo subject around the President, but the truth is that the President and his son have had a kind of rocky relationship. Still, as things got tougher and tougher in the waning days of the campaign—when the polls started to show the President slipping, Jack and his father became closer than ever before and Jack joined the campaign fulltime.”

  “Okay, Gabby and Leon, we’ll check back in with you shortly. Now, we go to our big board to get the latest results on the top Senate races this election night.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 35

  High above the freezing streets of Philadelphia, Mowbray-Dumaine campaign staffers were just this side of jubilant.

  Exit polls taken by the broadcast networks as well as their own pollsters showed them inching their way to an impressive victory, especially impressive against an incumbent President, as the night wore on.

  Bill and Bianca were sitting in two armchairs with a coffee table in front of them littered with the debris of the evening: cans of Coke, abandoned Styrofoam cups of coffee, plastic bottles of half-finished water, etc. With a couple of dozen staffers moving in and out of the room at any one time, they were watching Leon report from South Beach.

  “There’s an early sense of gloom hanging over the headquarters of President St. Clair, who remains secluded with his top advisors in his suite tonight.”

  “That’s just what we’ve been hearing from other sources, Leon.”

  “But it’s still early,” Leon shrugged.

  “That’s what we have to remember, people,” said Dumaine, raising his voice to be heard over the noise pouring in from the other rooms.

  “Of course,” Brian was saying, “there’s a pattern that unfolds every Election Day: early returns from the East generally favor the Democratic candidate, while the Republicans tend to surge ahead in the West as the polls close later in the evening.”

  “We know,” said Phil Thuris, just walking into the room.

  Gabby Mercade spoke up from her position in the ballroom down below.

  “This is the traditional pattern that’s unfolding, Brian, but the Democrats just seem to be beating up on the President right now, everywhere.”

  Behind Dumaine, someone let out a cheer:

  “Yeah!” And it was quickly taken up by the rest of the crew: “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

  Tim Harcourt leaned over Bill and Bianca.

  “Need anything, Bianca, Senator?”

  “I’ll take a Diet Pepsi,” said Bianca.

  “Nothing for me,” said Bill.

  “Mowbray wants to see you,” said Phil, leaning over.

  “Oh?”

  Phil smiled knowingly.

  “Maybe he wants to go over items in his victory speech.”

  “Yeah?”

  “One of his people told me he wants you to go first, set it up, introduce him.”

  “That’s very cool of him,” said Tim, coming back into the circle and handing Bianca her Diet Pepsi.

  Phil and Bianca looked at Tim, who shut up immediately.

  Bianca looked like she’d suddenly lost her desire for the Pepsi, and put it down untouched on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Well,” she said, “don’t keep the almost President-elect waiting.”

  “Right,” said Bill, hopping up and tightening his tie. “I’m going to wash my face, freshen up. Tim, get my jacket.”

  “Yep,” said Tim, leading the way into a bedroom on the other side of the suite.

  Phil sat in the chair Bill had just vacated, and he and Bianca watched as Bill and Tim crossed another sitting room outside the one where they were watching TV. Bill put a friendly arm over Tim’s shoulder, nothing that would cause anyone to think anything about.

  Unless, of course, you were Bianca or Phil.

  Inside the bedroom, Tim and Bill threw their arms around each other and hugged tightly.

  “Ah, that feels good,” said Bill.

  “Yeah,” said Tim.

  “Phil and Bianca seem a little testy,” said Bill, moving into the bathroom to splash some water on his face.

  Tim went and got Bill’s suit jacket from a closet and brought it in to him.

  “I know. If I so much as make a peep, they give me this look.”

  “I’ve noticed it. And it’s not a good look.”

  “She say anything to you?”

  Bill shook his head, frowned.

  “Not a word.”

  “She probably doesn’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not like her to sit still, though,” Bill said, “not like her at all.”

  Tim held out the jacket and Bill slid his arms in. Tim raised the jacket onto Bill’s shoulders and smoothed it down.

  “Go kill ’em, Tiger.”

  “Grrrr,” Bill said playfully.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 36

  Meanwhile, down in balmy South Beach where it was a pleasant winter night with a 72-degree temperature and a ten to fifteen-miles-an-hour breeze, President St. Clair was meeting privately with Jack in a room off the penthouse suite at the Raleigh.

  “Make me a drink, will you, son? Any Scotch they have over there.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  Jack went over to a bar set up on the other side of the room and looked through the bottles.

  “We have a Johnny Walker Black and a Chivas.”

  “Johnny Walker,” said the President, sitting down heavily in a chair.

  “I’ll have the same thing,” Jack said to himself.

  He poured the drinks and brought them over, sitting on the bed across from his dad’s chair.

  “God, but it really looks like they have us.”

  “It sure does,” Jack said, taking a healthy sip from his glass. “Too bad about Illinois.”

  “Too bad about a lot of things. Maybe we should have used that stuff about Dumaine and that boyfriend of his.”

  “Tim Harcourt. Well, too late now. In hindsight, maybe it was a big mistake.”

  The President got up and walked to a window overlooking the Raleigh pool, one of the prettiest in the country.

  “The big mistake—when they count all the numbers and do all the research—will come down to our mistaking that we were running against Doug Mowbray when we should have been running against Bill Dumaine.”

  “And…”

  His father turned around to give him a hard look.

  “Yes—and not using what we knew about Dumaine and Harcourt. Still, I feel good about it.”

  All Jack could do was nod.

  He felt good about it, too—that his dad had so much honor and wouldn’t sink into the gutter.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 37

  A half hour later, in response to a text from Francesca, Jack made his way through the Secret Service detail protecting his dad to an elevator that took him down to the lobby.

  The small elevator wasn’t big enough to accommodate more than one Secret Service agent along with ordinary users, so it was a squeeze. The agent nodded to Jack; he nodded back.

  The lobby was just as packed with Secret Service personnel as the elevator and hallways, plus all the staff and wellwishers. Agent Rodriguez and his team kept a weather eye on everything that happened in the lobby.

  The Raleigh was so small that it made an insane choice to hold a Presidential victory (or defeat) party, but that’s the way his dad wanted it. His ancestors hailed from Miami Beach long before there was a Miami Beach, and he wanted to have his “big event” down here on South Beach.

  Just off the lobby there was the Raleigh Martini Bar, a tiny little Art Deco gem that looked like it belonged in a 1930s ocean liner like the Normandie. Didn’t seat but eight at the small, polished wooden bar. And had lighting right out of that movie, The Shining, when the bartender pushes Jack Nicholson’s money back across the bar and says, “Your money’s no good here, Mr. Torrance.
” Creepy, but elegantly creepy. Jack could almost hear the big band dance music in the background.

  Francesca had just come into town from New York. Jack slid into the Martini Bar and immediately spotted her. Her long flowing dark brown hair danced as she laughed at something the guy next to her said. Jack gave the guy a quick once-over.

  Reporter. No question.

  As he got closer, he recognized the guy: Leon Pomfret from NBC.

  He caught Leon’s eye as he came up behind Francesca.

  “Oh, it’s my lucky night,” said Leon, looking over Francesca’s shoulder.

  “Why’s that?” she asked, following his gaze and seeing Jack.

  She threw herself into Jack’s arms and kissed him on the lips.

  “I hope you’re not calling this a celebration,” Leon deadpanned.

  “Well, we haven’t seen each other in three weeks,” Francesca explained. “He’s been so busy on the campaign trail he didn’t have time for me.”

  Jack kissed her again.

  “I’ll always have time for you, sweetheart,” he said in his best Humphrey Bogart imitation.

  The bartender, Crispy, came over to them.

  “Hey, Jack, the usual?”

  “Yep. Hey, Crispy, what’re you doing tending bar?” Crispy Soloperto was the concierge at the hotel, but at one time had been the bartender.

  “Busy as hell, Jack, busy as hell—they need me back here.”

  Though there were others waiting before him, Jack was a regular and she poured his drink first: the Lagavulin 16 single malt.

  “I don’t suppose you’d give me an exclusive interview,” said Leon, stating it rather than asking it.

  “You’d be right, Leon,” said Jack. “I think we’ll have to wait for my dad to make his remarks before we say anything at all.”

  “Off the record,” Leon leaned in, “strictly off the record: how’s your old man taking it?”

  “He’s sixty-eight. Young enough to still want a lot more out of life. But old enough to be philosophical when events turn against him.”

  “What’s he going to do? Off the record.”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Who knows? He can do a lot of things.”

  “He can plan his library,” said Francesca.

  “Relax for a while,” added Jack.

  “Write a book,” Francesca said.

  “Hit the lecture circuit, make some money,” Leon said.

  “The St. Clairs don’t need money,” Francesca said.

  “Correction, Francesca: President St. Clair doesn’t need money. I still have to work,” he said, taking a long sip from the Lagavulin.

  “You do pretty well,” she winked.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, kissing her again on the neck. “Who needs money?”

  “How is the detective business these days?” Leon asked, but you could tell he really didn’t care.

  “I don’t have a detective agency. Every now and then I help out a friend of mine who has an agency.”

  “Still, you get some pretty high-profile clients.”

  Francesca winked at Leon.

  “There’s a lot that goes on up on St. Clair Island,” she said.

  “Is your dad heading up to the island after he makes his, uh, remarks?” asked Leon, hesitating over the word “remarks,” when he intended to say “concession speech.”

  “I suggested it, but he says he wants to go right back to Washington.”

  “A lot of loose ends to tie up getting ready for the Transition,” Leon said.

  Francesca and Jack exchanged glances.

  Well, he certainly spoke the truth, they both thought.

  Leon touched his earpiece as he got instructions from his producer.

  “Gotta get ready,” he said. “Thanks for the chat.” He moved away from them, but suddenly turned back and added: “Best to you dad, okay?”

  “Sure, Leon. No problem.”

  “He was always a class act, your dad, especially in this scummy business.”

  “Thanks, Leon. I’ll tell him, believe me. He’ll appreciate it.”

  “Goodbye, Leon,” Francesca said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “He’s a pretty good old sod, Leon,” said Jack.

  “For a reporter,” added Francesca. “I’ve known him for years. A couple of years ago, they sent him to cover a fashion show that we were working at the magazine.”

  “Leon Pomfret covering a fashion show?”

  “I know. Crazy, huh?”

  Jack nodded to Crispy and she came over with the bottle of the Lagavulin. She grabbed his glass, dropped a couple of large, clunky ice cubes into it, and filled it halfway with the potent whisky.

  “I’m beat,” he said, forcing as smile and a wave to some people over Francesca’s shoulder.

  “You going back to Washington with your dad?”

  “I certainly don’t want to, now that you’re in town.” He moved closer to her.

  “It’s not a biggie. I flew down just to be with you and your dad tonight. Have to go back tomorrow.”

  “So come back with us on Air Force One, stay with me and grab the shuttle tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s doable.”

  “If the old man goes back tonight. He might change his mind and just go up to the island.”

  “Either way, I’m yours all night,” she said, moving into his arms.

  “I hope I can find the energy to satisfy you,” he smiled.

  “Oh, you’ll find it, honey, you’ll find it,” she purred.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 38

  As the polls closed with each progressing time zone, it became clearer and clearer that St. Clair had lost the election.

  There was unconcealed jubilation at the Mowbray-Dumaine election night headquarters at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.

  Low-level staffers were already setting their schedules to begin the arduous process of the Transition, the system by which the two American political parties switch power.

  Dumaine and his senior advisors were clustered around a bank of four TVs in a large sitting room in one of the suites, watching the coverage on the networks and cable channels.

  Someone had just flipped to NBC, and there was Leon Pomfret at the Raleigh Hotel in South Beach, adjusting his earpiece, standing beneath an up-lit royal palm by the pool.

  “They’ve passed the word that President St. Clair will be appearing shortly to address his campaign followers,” he was saying.

  “That’s the word we just got as well,” said Brian Williams from the NBC studio in Rockefeller Plaza.

  “They’re telling me five, maybe ten minutes,” said Leon.

  Bianca and Phil were near the back of the room, by one of the doors, standing together.

  “Feel like a drink?” he whispered.

  “Just a Diet Pepsi,” she said.

  He gave her a look.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Vodka on the rocks.”

  They moved into the next room and over to the side where a bar had been set up.

  “Ketel One on the rocks,” said Phil to the bartender, “and a double Appleton 21 on the rocks.”

  “I don’t think we have that,” said the bartender.

  “Yeah, you do. I called special to tell them to order it. I had it earlier when someone else was tending bar.”

  The bartender fussed about and found the Appleton 21 on a shelf below.

  They got their drinks and moved over to a large window overlooking the rain-slicked streets far below, a million lights flickering in the late winter night. They were relatively alone in their little corner, even as the room was packed to overflowing.

  Both of them saw Tim Harcourt hustle across the room, pushing between two staffers in his hurry to get into the other room where Bill Dumaine was watching the coverage.

  Bianca licked her upper lip, a twitch that Phil knew showed her nervousness.

  “Now it’s just beginning.”

  “There he is,” Phil sai
d, looking across the room at Tim.

  “What are we going to do about him? This whole thing will leak out someday, somehow, blow up in our faces. I know it.” She stopped abruptly, threw on a fake smile and waved to people across the room. “Tim and Bill will ruin everything we’ve worked for all these years.” She took a healthy swallow of the vodka.