Dark Horse td-89

by Warren Murphy

  "I think we should next take the battle to San Francisco."

  "Yeah. Barry Black's home turf. That ought to spook that Frisco flake good."

  When he had every Oreo scraped clean, and a nice sweet pile of white creme filling, Harmon Cashman lifted the plate to his mouth and began licking.

  He paused only once. To spoon a dab into his black coffee.

  When he had licked the plate clean, he drank the coffee in one gulp.

  "I hear the stores are having a run on these cookies wherever we've passed them out," Harman said, smacking his lips with relish. "Maybe we can get an endorsement out of the company. We must be buying them by the freight-train load, and I've never seen an invoice."

  "They are donations," Esperanza said flatly.

  "No kidding? That's better than an endorsement."

  "I think so," said Enrique Esperanza, looking out at the San Gabriel Mountains, his voice as far away as their hazy peaks.

  Barry Black, Junior had grown up in the California governor's mansion. He had first sat in the corner office, not behind the desk but bouncing on his father's knee.

  Barry Black, Senior had been the first Democratic governor of California since the Great Depression. That had been in the 1950s.

  It had taken until the 1970s for another California Democrat to occupy the corner office. That had been Barry Black, Junior.

  The two terms Barry Black, Junior had served had almost ensured that California would not elect another Democrat to the governorship until the next Great Depression. If even then.

  After a string of debacles, ranging from his attempts to protect the Medfly from an eradication program designed to save the state citrus crop to his proposal to put a Californian on Mars by the year 2,000 the man the press had dubbed "Governor Glowworm" had been turned out of office quicker than a shoplifter from a Wal-Mart.

  On his last day in office, Barry Black announced that he was going to the mysterious East to study in India and help Mother Teresa.

  "You won't have Barry Black to ridicule anymore," he announced, plagiarizing the words of a famous predecessor.

  In fact, he hoped to acquire the power to cloud men's minds in India. He knew his only ticket back to the governor's office would be to hypnotize the electorate into forgetting his disastrous terms.

  Barry Black, Junior never did pick up that unique skill. Instead, he meditated. A decade of meditating on his future brought only flashbacks on his past.

  Deciding that his future lay in his past, and after shaving his thick ascetic beard-his only accomplishment during his decade spent seeking wisdom-Barry Black, Junior returned to sunny California.

  The return of Barry Black delighted California Republicans. It petrified the Democrats, who made Barry Black an irresistible offer almost before he had stepped off the jumbo jet.

  "We want you to head up the party," a nervous delegation told him. "Please."

  "I want to serve my party," Barry Black said, "but I also want to serve the people. Mother Teresa taught me that. "

  "The party needs you. We need you."

  "I don't know . . . ."

  "Mother Teresa said it would be okay," a scared delegate said in desperation.

  "She did?"

  "Her exact words were, 'Barry should go where he'll do the most good.' "

  And so Barry Black, Junior became the Democratic Party Chairman of the state of California and hustled a small fortune in campaign contributions. Inside of six months, he was on his way to becoming the most successful fundraiser the party had ever seen.

  "I'm really good at this," he said when the coffers had topped three million dollars. "Mother Teresa was right."

  Barry Black, Junior raised so much money he succumbed to a distinctly Democratic impulse. He squandered every cent. On an excessive and unnecessary staff.

  His grassroots political efforts collapsed for lack of funds and he was canned, forcing Barry Black to run for senator. He garnered an unimpressive three percent of the popular vote, and narrowly escaped being hanged from a eucalyptus tree. By his own party machinery.

  The experience created in Barry Black, Junior a sense of moral outrage, a new sense of moral outrage unlike any sense of moral outrage that had ever possessed him.

  "I raised millions for those bastards," he howled from the safety of Oregon.

  "And you blew it in two years flat," his most trusted advisor pointed out bitterly. "While you were building a useless political machine, the Republicans were outregistering us four-to-one."

  "You know, the problem with this country is incumbency," said Barry Black, stumbling on a new campaign theme.

  "You were an incumbent once."

  "And if I were back in office, you can be damn sure this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in."

  "Barry," said the advisor, his voice cracking like that of a bullfrog. "You're not thinking of doing it again. Are you?"

  "What's wrong with . . . it?"

  The other began ticking off reasons on fingers. "You washed out in 1980. You washed in 1984. California doesn't want you. What makes you think the rest of the country wants you?"

  Barry Black squared his well-tailored shoulders. "They don't want me. That's the message. They need me. Washington is full of fat cats wasting the tax dollars. I only waste campaign contributions. It's an entirely different thing."

  "Please, please, don't run for President again. I'm begging you."

  But Barry Black was not to be swayed. His chipmunk eyes were already aglow with pure populist ambition.

  "It's the White House or nothing," he vowed.

  "It's nothing," the other man sobbed. "It's nothing."

  Barry Black, Junior didn't even bother with an exploratory committee. He just got out in front of the cameras one day, his thinning hair now graying at the temples, and announced that he was a candidate for President of the United States.

  "Again?" asked a reporter.

  "This is what-the third time?" another wanted to know.

  Barry Black became indignant.

  "No, not again. That was a different Barry Black. I'm the new Barry Black, out to unseat the incumbents. I'm determined to reclaim the country, and reinvent the system. And the first thing I'm doing is to absolutely refuse any campaign contribution larger than a hundred dollars."

  Coming from a man who had raised millions as California's Democratic Party Chairman, this was akin to Donald Trump offering to spend a night in a holding cell rather than squander a cent bailing himself out of jail.

  The Barry Black for President campaign was mercifully short. After six months of stumping and speech-giving, and railing against everything from incumbency to what he called the "medical-industrial complex," he had raised a grand total of three thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars and six cents. One of which was Canadian.

  "Not even enough to cover our phone bills," sobbed his most trusted advisor, now campaign manager.

  "The trouble with you is you have no vision," Barry Black accused.

  "The trouble with you is you have no brains. I quit!" said the campaign manager, slamming the door behind him.

  That slamming door also closed out his ill-fated campaign. Without a campaign manager, Barry Black, Junior was reduced to doing his own laundry. The burden proved too much.

  He was forced to pull out of the Presidential campaign early in the primaries. Back in his Pacific Park home overlooking San Francisco Bay, he once again took stock of his political future.

  "Ommmmm. Ommmmm," he moaned, attempting to meditate.

  It was in the middle of his mantra that the bulletin broke over the New Age mandolin music wafting from a table radio:

  "The Governor's office has just announced that the governor and his lieutenant governor have both perished in an airliner crash. Further details when they become available."

  Barry Black, Junior snapped his beady eyes open.

  "It was a dream. I dreamed that, didn't I?" he asked the emptiness.

  Flinging himself to t
he radio, he roved all over the dial until he had heard three variations of the same bulletin.

  Barry Black, Junior took the next shuttle to Sacramento, to put in a surprise appearance at the double state funeral.

  At the grave site, as the first clods of dirt clumped onto the side-by-side coffins, Barry Black, Junior worked the bereaved with an appropriately solemn expression on his chipmunk face.

  "I share your loss," he told the first weeping widow quietly. "I hope you'll vote for me in the special election. I share your loss," he told the second weeping widow. "I hope you'll consider me worthy of your vote in your time of grief."

  The funeral had been a model of decorum until then. After Barry Black, Junior had finished offering his condolences to the immediate families, sobbing broke out.

  Word rippled through the crowd. The press, catching word, descended upon Barry Black, Junior, quickly surrounding him.

  "This is unseemly!" Barry Black said indignantly. "This is a state funeral, a morose occasion!"

  "What's this we hear about you declaring your intention to run in the special election?" he was asked.

  "Special election? You mean they're planning a special election?" Barry Black said blankly. It's true I have been considering a reentry into local affairs, but I have made no determinations at this time."

  "Do you think California is ready for Barry Black in the corner office again?"

  "The old Barry Black, no."

  "Which old Barry Black is that? The old Barry Black who was party chairman, or the old, old Barry Black who was governor?"

  "I am neither of those Barry Blacks," Barry Black said firmly. "I am a whole new Barry Black. Think of it as a political reincarnation."

  A cynical voice spoke up.

  "How do you define the new improved Barry Black?"

  "I define him," Barry Black, Junior said, to the jawdropping astonishment of the assembled press, "as a dyed-in-the-wool Republican."

  Upon hearing the announcement, the California Republican Party chairman said, "We disown the flake."

  The President's spokesman in Washington was moved to declare, "He can call himself whatever he wants, that doesn't make it so."

  The Sacramento Bee, reviving the old political nickname, headlined it, GOVERNOR GLOWWORM TURNS.

  Unfortunately for the California Republican party, they felt obliged to run the secretary of state and interim governor. He had two strikes against him: He had zero name recognition, and he was seen as the political creation of the hated but now lamented governor. Not a dark horse, but a dead one.

  In protest, campaign contributions poured into Barry Black, Junior's war chest. No one believed he would win, anyway. He represented the protest-vote candidate. Everybody knew that.

  Everybody except Barry Black, Junior.

  "I love being a Republican!" he crowed, "It's so darn easy!"

  "Don't get your hopes up," cautioned his new campaign manager.

  "Why not? My only competition is Rambette the Ripper. Ever since she quite smoking, she's been hot to outlaw cigarettes."

  "Barry, there's an old political saying, 'Dance with the one what brung ya.' "

  Barry blinked beady, uncomprehending eyes.

  "I don't know that one. It doesn't sound charitable."

  "It means you came into politics a Democrat, and people won't respect you for switching horses in midstream. Just because you call yourself a Republican, doesn't mean the voters will buy it come election day."

  "Tell that to David Duke," returned Barry Black, Junior.

  "You wanna be the next David Duke, pull a sheet over your head and move to Louisiana."

  With virtually no competition, Barry Black, Junior became an unstoppable juggernaut. In the polls.

  Then came the first reports of the attempt on the life of dark-horse candidate Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.

  "Who is Enrique Espiritu Esperanza?" Barry Black had asked when word reached him.

  He had to have it explained to him twice.

  When Enrique Esperanza began climbing up the polls, the question became, "Who the heck is Enrique Espiritu Esperanza?"

  It was explained to him again. This time with newspaper clippings.

  "No problem," he said. "He's nobody."

  When the first footage of the South Central district of Los Angeles rally showed Enrique Esperanza lording it over the gangs like a modern-day Caesar, Barry Black was moved to shout, "Who the fucking hell is this Esperanza?"

  "I don't know, but according to the political calendar, he's coming to town today."

  "Let's get our troops mustered," said Barry Black.

  Barry Black fumed as he was driven to his campaign headquarters on Nob Hill in a stretch limousine, a legacy from his party chairman days. He had purchased it from petty cash.

  "I gotta do something about this guy," he muttered.

  "Like what?"

  "I'm a Republican now. I should do something appropriately Republican. Establish my new credentials."

  "Good idea."

  Barry Black's brow furrowed. "What would a Republican do in a situation like this?"

  "I thought you were a Republican."

  "I mean hypothetically."

  "Maybe you should play the race card. Isn't that what they do?"

  "Great thinking. I'll make a speech. Call him a lowdown wetback greaser."

  "Uh, Barry, I don't think that would be the way to go"

  "Why not? It's the Republican way, isn't it?"

  "No. It's what the Democrats call the Republican way."

  "Darn. You're right. I'm still thinking like a Democrat. I gotta cure these tendencies." Barry Black closed his eyes. "Ommmmm. Ommmmm.''

  "You okay, Barry?"

  "I'm meditating on Republicanism."

  "Let me know if you see Lincoln," sighed his campaign manager.

  Barry Black still hadn't arrived at a response to the Esperanza challenge when his limo pulled up before the storefront campaign headquarters.

  He got out of the car, adjusting his Republican tie. He straightened his Republican coat and, his Republican shoes clicking on the sidewalk confidently, strode to the door.

  Came a screeching of tires around a corner. Barry Black turned instinctively. He saw an unusual sight, even for San Francisco.

  A wide red convertible screeched around the corner. There was a brown-skinned man behind the wheel.

  Squatting in the open backseat, like a machine-gunner in the rear of a jeep, was another brown-skinned man hanging off a fifty-caliber machine gun, which swayed on a pedestal mount.

  The convertible straightened. The man at the machine gun got the perforated barrel pointed where he wanted it to point.

  He wanted it to point in the general direction of Barry Black, Junior. Then he wanted it to open fire on Barry Black, Junior, because with a percussive stutter, it did.

  Fifty-caliber bullets recognize few obstacles. These chopped through the campaign car, chewed up a fire plug, and reduced the Barry Black for Governor campaign headquarters to a ruin of chipped brick, broken glass, and shattered, bleeding bodies.

  The convertible zoomed past, leaving Barry Black, Junior spread-eagled on the sidewalk.

  The candidate for governor lay face-up, eyes staring skyward, in a welter of plate glass.

  After the sound of the convertible's roar had died away in the distance, Barry Black's lips quirked. His eyes seemed to acquire focus.

  Then a low, mournful sound escaped his lips.

  "Ommm! Ommm! Ommm!"

  Chapter 17

  Cheeta Ching was the first news person to arrive on the scene of what the next day's San Francisco Examiner would call "The Nob Hill Massacre."

  The police had cordoned off the block. They no sooner had their yellow-plastic guard tape up than the FBI counterterrorist team descended on the scene and tore it all down. They made the police stand off to one side, handling reduced to crowd control.

  They were putting up their own guard tape when Cheeta Ching swoope
d in, like a harpy on wheels.

  "I'm Cheeta Ching!" she called, dragging her cameraman by his collar.

  She was pointedly ignored.

  "I said, I'm Cheeta Ching, you racists!"

  "Stay behind the lines, ma'am," an FBI agent cautioned.

  "Where's the candidate? I demand to see the candidate."

  A hand was raised. It was attached to a long, lean body that lay just outside the guard tape. Cheeta rushed up to the man.

  "You have a statement?"

  The hand formed a finger. It wobbled unsteadily.

  A low moan escaped his lips.

  "He's trying to communicate!" Cheeta said breathlessly. "He's trying to point out the candidate for us. Keep trying, you brave person."

  "Cheeta . . ." the cameraman said.

  "Quiet! I can't hear his moans!"

  "Cheeta . . ."

  "What!"

  "I think that is the candidate."

  "Oh my God!" Cheeta said, dropping to her knees.

  "Are you hurt? Where are you hurt? America wants to see your wounds!"

  "Not . . . hurt . . ." moaned Barry Black, Junior.

  Cheeta leaped to her feet. "Then you can wait. I need some wet footage. Somebody find me a bleeding casualty."

  They were still carrying out bodies from the demolished campaign headquarters.

  Cheeta turned on her cameraman. "You get in there and get some 'If it bleeds, it leads' footage."

  "Anyone stepping over the guard tape," a cold voice called, "will be arrested!"

  The cameraman looked from the FBI agent to the cold face of Cheeta Ching. Calmly, he stepped over the guard tape, laid down his minicam, and lifted his hands in surrender.

  An FBI agent stormed up. "What did I tell you?"

  "I work with Cheeta Ching. What's the worst you're going to do to me?"

  "I see your point," the agent said. He waved for a cop, saying, "Place this man in protective custody. For his own good."

  As he was being led away in handcuffs, the cameraman said sheepishly to Cheeta Ching in passing, "I tried."

  "You did not!" Cheeta flared. And while the cameraman, his head hanging low, was hustled into a police van, she recovered the minicam, saying, "Who needs cameramen, anyway?"