Flashpoint Read online

  ‘Who’s she?’

  Not only the question but the tartness of the voice brought me out of my thoughts about the election.

  I was sitting between two women on the ass-numbing folding chairs. On my left was Caitlin Conners, who ran the day-to-day operations of the campaign for my firm. Caitlin was long, lean and red-haired, a college star in track with a pretty prairie-girl face and a sly smile. On my right was Elise Logan, Robert’s wife, a striking if somewhat ethereal woman you had to be careful with. She had suffered a terrible childhood trauma, so terrible that she had been sent to psychiatric hospitals throughout her life, most recently three years ago. Shay’s people couldn’t talk about this on paid media but their printed material coyly referred to it many times. I liked Elise more than I did Robert, actually. She was one of those wan beauties you always read about in Agatha Christie; I wanted to protect her.

  I had to scan the crowd to see whom she’d referred to. I didn’t see the woman until my eyes reached the back of the gym.

  From this distance she looked wrong not only for a town hall meeting, but also for a small burg like Linton. Just the way her hip was cocked, the way she smiled so obviously at Logan and the way her white silk blouse and tight dark skirt clung to her suggested that she likely had a big-city life somewhere. Not that she seemed obvious in any way; on the contrary, she was the kind of young woman – from here I guessed her age at around thirty – you saw in expensive clubs in Chicago and Washington, DC. I would have bet that the hairstyle had cost her three or four hundred and the duds an easy fifteen hundred. And if her facial features up close were as elegant as they appeared to be from here, I would probably be in danger of falling in love for an hour or two tonight.

  The concern in Caitlin’s response surprised me. ‘She’s nobody, Elise. She’s probably press or something.’

  The conversation ended when a cranky older woman in the crowd stood up and barked, ‘What are you going to do about high school girls sending pictures of their boobies to their boyfriends?’

  Hilarity, as they say, ensued.

  The next morning I flew back to Chicago, and in the battles that awaited me forgot all about the woman at the back of the gym and Elise Logan’s angry response to her. In fact, if I remembered anything it was the way the senator had responded to the booby question. He’d laughed and said, ‘My only solution is to bow our heads and pray.’ He’d gotten a big ovation. Then he’d gone on to make the correct pious noises.

  Eleven days later I was with Caitlin and the senator again. I had talked to him every day, Skyped with him every other day or so and poured over the daily internal polls. We were up with women and African-Americans, but getting a miserable twenty-two percent of white working-class males, which was terrible for us, and trailing substantially behind with college-educated males, a group that tended to vote. Our opponent was a believer in taxing the grubbing poor and helping the much misunderstood but deserving rich. I suppose that explained it.

  And now we were back in Chicago at a major fundraiser. My one and only dinner jacket was fraying on the left cuff but I assumed I could get through the evening without causing a social catastrophe. As I had been without woman since my friend of several months had decided to go back to her faithless husband after all – this time he’d be different, she’d said, and I cared enough about her to let the lie go unchallenged – I had vague hopes of meeting somebody tonight.

  Combing my hair in my room before the festivities I puckered my lips then smiled at myself in the mirror. I almost always did this before a fundraiser where wealthy people were the targets. Some of them expected Olympian-level ass-kissing and always got it. They wanted you to know how important they were to the campaign and what they expected the senator would do for them when and if he returned to Washington for an additional six years. The Pope doesn’t get the kind of servility they expect. Fortunately that’s a small number of them.

  This being Chicago, a small troop of security men with guns had been hired to make sure that nobody was packing and that everybody who walked through the front door was on the approved list. Assassination was not exactly unknown in America.

  I arrived early and was met by James-never-Jim Logan, the younger and less successful brother of the senator. They were near twins physically. Tall, lean, lanky and both graying some – nice-looking if not quite handsome in traditional manly ways. Mid-forties, my own age.

  But there the similarities ended. Their father had spent his life in communications – radio, mostly – and at the time of his death owned a large number of small and mid-size radio stations across the country. That was the basis of his sprawling fortune, a fortune Robert had overseen quite well before entering politics, where he was equally successful.

  James was the swashbuckler. Fast cars, faster women and three failed start-ups in a three-year period. At that point, his own inheritance depleted, he patched up a quarrelsome relationship with Robert and began to live off his older brother’s charity. First he worked as a staffer for the then Representative Logan. But Robert made him do the kind of scut work most staffers have to do. So James did what every right-thinking American lad does who loves to sit and drink and toss the ol’ shit back and forth. He became a lobbyist, spending most of his time working for firms that were interested in snagging his brother’s vote. But it turned out that Robert’s charity didn’t extend to selling his vote to James’ firms so they fired him. Unhappily he went back to work on Robert’s staff.

  ‘I saw the internals, Dev. Not looking so good.’ James was friends with another group of consultants. He had tried to convince Robert to dump me and go with them. All this took place two years ago. He still took every opportunity to challenge me. Everybody knows somebody who’s better at a particular job than you are; consultants are used to that. But James makes it personal. Had I been less of the considerate gent I am, I would have brought up the subject of the loan he’d been begging his brother to make him. I’d caught them wrangling about it several times. James had another dumb idea for a dumb business – a public-relations agency for raccoons or something – and Robert was understandably sick of hearing about it.

  ‘I don’t like the internals either but we’re holding our own. And we have three weeks to go.’

  ‘What’s that expression? Whistling past the graveyard?’ Then he turned his attention to the doors and the sudden influx of sparkling high-end donors.

  More than a dozen women in evening dresses were filing in on the arms of their husbands. James had two reputations – one as a heavy-drinking hothead and the other as a chaser. He was one of those mysterious males you run into occasionally. He didn’t have the looks or the charm to be successful with women but somehow he was. It could have been his brother’s money or his brother’s status as a senator, but somehow I didn’t think so because there was also the matter of the mysterious female. Women you credit with intelligence and judgment become slaves of a kind to men who treat them terribly. So maybe it was the bad-boy syndrome that kept James in contention. But fortunately I don’t know that many women so inclined, so most kept their distance from him. He specialized in treating women horribly; there had been a few lawsuits, in fact, and one abuse incident in which police had been called but the woman refused to press charges. This was after, I was told, Robert offered her a good chunk of change.

  ‘I’m a lot more comfortable in a union hall than I am in a place like this.’

  I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t, of course. It was alleged by James he had the ‘touch’ (his word) with the working class, so he actually went to some meetings in union halls in Robert’s district. A union guy I knew who’d worked with James said, ‘He came to a meeting and left after twenty minutes. He claimed he had another appointment. But you could see that we kind of freaked him out. Like we’d give him an infection if he stayed long enough.’

  An angel of mercy in the comely form of Caitlin Conners appeared in a strapless silver gown. Very fetching. She slid her arm through mine and said,
‘I hope you’re planning to dance with me tonight.’

  ‘If you’d ever seen me try to dance you wouldn’t be asking me that.’

  She stuck her tongue out at me. I’d always loved her occasional immaturity.

  ‘I’ll dance with you,’ James said. ‘In fact, I already have.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. And by the time we were finished I’d wished I’d had my rape whistle.’ She obviously wasn’t joking.

  Most men would have been embarrassed to hear a woman say that about them. Not James. He just grinned. ‘Oh, I forgot you’re a virgin.’

  Caitlin’s laugh was piercing. ‘You’re such a clown, James, and you don’t even know it.’

  Then she was brushing her lips against my cheek – all perfume and warm woman flesh – and hurrying away.

  ‘Bitch.’

  ‘She’s a friend of mine. And she’s not a bitch.’

  ‘They’re all bitches, Conrad. And when you grow up someday, you’ll realize that.’

  He smirked and walked away.

  A few dozen men and women in white coats were finishing their work with the tables that filled three-quarters of the small ballroom. The walls were hung with large color photographs of our senator doing various things including being sworn in, waving to people at a Cubs game, whitewater rafting in Colorado, looking somber as he delivered a speech to his colleagues, standing between a rabbi and a priest, shooting baskets with inner-city kids and hugging Elise and his teenage daughter Maddy to him. If we could have gotten a photo of him ascending into heaven we’d have had our victory in our pocket.

  There was a stage with a six-piece band of mostly bald men in shiny red dinner jackets and blood-red cummerbunds. They called themselves the Cavaliers; four of them were lawyers and two worked at the same brokerage firm. Not rock-and-roll rebels but I’d heard them play several times before and they were just right for gigs like this.

  There were enough small chandeliers to blind you and enough flowers to give you a sinus infection. The peach and red décor was smart and the red chairs comfortable. I’d tried one. I’d also scanned a menu. I was up for the Grilled Marinated Salmon with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce and Saffron Rice. For fifteen thousand dollars a couple – half that for singles – would you expect any less?

  Within half an hour the place was filled with people of various ages and various colors all shiny and fine in their evening attire and almost immediately klatching up in groups of friends. Young men and women in red jackets – replacing the first battalion of white jackets – flitted about the room like worker ants offering cocktails while the Cavaliers tuned up.

  When Elise and Robert appeared fifteen minutes later, everybody turned to the doors. They made their way toward the front of the room, throwing out smiles and nods the way royalty had once thrown out roses. A standing ovation was inevitable since everybody was standing anyway and little effort was required.

  At an appropriate distance behind them, like a courtesan, came Caitlin. The problem was her smile. She’d obviously had to wrench it out of herself and I wondered why.

  I’d hoped to talk to her before we both took our seats at the small table nearest the dance floor – just the five of us, Elise and Robert, Caitlin and I, and of course my good friend James – but there wasn’t an opportunity because exactly on time a burly guy from the Chicago machine grabbed the microphone that Robert would be using for his speech and proceeded to inform us of what a buncha great people we were and how we were gonna break the legs – so to speak – of our opponent. I exaggerate, of course, but not by much.

  Dinner, it seemed, was served.

  By the time both Robert and Elise had finished their first cocktail it was clear that they, too, were wrenching paparazzi smiles out of themselves. Robert kept glancing at her nervously and she kept glaring at him in return. Then they’d become aware of me observing them and up would come these rickety bullshit smiles like fading footlights.

  James had excused himself after gulping down a drink. He was making the rounds of the tables, no doubt searching for tonight’s lucky woman, married or not. That he’d be interrupting people’s dinners wouldn’t bother him – not James. Or maybe he was smart. Maybe he just wanted to get away from the tension at the table. But whatever, he’d be hitting on women all through the night, taking what he considered the trophy back to his Michigan Avenue condo. The gossip columnists in Washington loved him. He was always good for a couple of sleazy lines. I’d finally convinced Robert to rein him in by threatening to fire him. James had gotten all in my face about it; like I gave a shit.

  Caitlin kept telling Elise how pretty she looked and she did, her pale elegance in her mauve gown all the more endearing because of her palpable sadness.

  What the hell was going on?

  ‘Excuse me,’ Elise said. I tried to pretend that I didn’t notice the tears in her pale gray eyes. ‘I need to visit the ladies’ room.’

  As soon as she was gone Robert said, ‘Well, this is some goddamned night, isn’t it? I could’ve just stayed home if I wanted to hear her tear into me.’ Then, quickly: ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I love her. She’s the love of my life, in fact, and I was the one who screwed it up.’ Then he was on his feet and tossing his heavy white cloth napkin on the table. ‘I’m going to the john myself.’

  ‘All right,’ I said to Caitlin once he’d disappeared. ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  ‘He’s right. He screwed it up and he’s paying for it.’

  ‘Screwed what up?’

  ‘His marriage. He had a little affair three years ago and she’s never been able to trust him since. They’ve tried to keep it quiet but one night when we were in a private plane they woke me up with their arguing. I was able to figure it out in pieces. Some waitress in a Washington pub. Georgetown, I guess. The woman was crazy enough to call him – drunk, of course – late at night. Elise was able to find the number on the phone in the morning and called it. The woman answered. It took her a week to work on him – Elise, I mean – but he finally admitted that he’d slept with the woman three times. Which meant it was probably ten times or more. It really destroyed Elise. You know how fragile she’s always been anyway. It runs in her family. A lot of mental issues.’

  ‘Robert told me about that. What’s she so upset about tonight?’

  ‘Just seeing all these beautiful women, I guess. She starts thinking about him sneaking around again and kind of loses it. She feels threatened all the time. She’s seeing a therapist and taking anti-anxiety meds because it’s getting worse, but they don’t seem to be helping much.’

  The first time you meet a potential client you expect to hear nothing but what a wonderful swell man or woman he or she is. You expect that. The problems come out in the following meetings when you’ve begun to work together. Oh, didn’t I mention …? Oh, I didn’t think that would be a problem! That was just a misunderstanding with the IRS. Eventually you get most of it but not all of it. When George McGovern ran for president in 1972 his vice-presidential choice, a man named Thomas Eagleton, forgot to mention the teeny tiny fact that he had spent time in a mental hospital for depression. McGovern probably hadn’t had much of a chance of winning anyway but getting stalled like that right at the start of his campaign sure didn’t help him.

  Some of my clients don’t like the fact that when I hire opposition researchers to comb the past of our opponent I also pay them to comb the past of my candidate. I also tell them if I ever learn that they were involved in a felony that has come to light I will in turn inform the police of it. So if they ever have anything to hide tell me upfront so we can deal with it. I have been fortunate thus far; most of the things they haven’t wanted to tell me about dealt with infidelity.

  Robert was back. He started to talk but by the time he was seated a small group of well-wishers had gathered around our table and were telling him how much they were enjoying themselves tonight. He was good at the blarney. Not a hint of anger. The men shook his hand and the women kissed his l
eft cheek. He smiled as if he’d gone to acting school to learn how.

  All this time the machine man had been introducing other machine politicians. The applause had diminished considerably after the fourth or fifth one. People got tired of seeing the farm team. They wanted to see the star of the World Series and tonight that was Senator Robert Logan.

  When his name was announced everybody stood. The applause was fulsome and lengthy. The senator took the stage. And just as he did so Elise came back. She sat down without a word and turned her attention to the stage where the senator was just beginning his speech. The gray eyes were dry now, though the rims looked wounded.

  Having had a hand in writing the speech there were no surprises for me. I wished I was sitting at the back. Watching people was a lot more interesting than watching the stage. Elise was one chair away from me. When I saw her start to lean forward I wondered what she was going to do. Then I realized she was putting her hand out for me to take. I was glad to hold it for her. I’d known a few people, including men, who’d been thoroughly devastated by love affairs gone bad. One of the guys had tried to cut his wrists. I’d visited him twice a week on a psych ward for two months. Elise and I smiled at each other.

  Robert got another standing O when he finished his speech. The band waited for everybody who wanted to rush to the stage to congratulate him on solving all our national problems in just under seventeen minutes. Then the lights went low over both the dance area and the bandstand and they broke into the ballad ‘Laura’, which they hyped up just a bit.