The Candidate (8 page)

ERICA AND JENNY ARE APPROACHING the Sutton East Tennis Club, which is housed in a white plastic inflatable structure that sits under the Williamsburg Bridge at Fifty-Ninth Street and York Avenue. Jenny looks adorable and stylish in her sky-blue tennis outfit with white piping. Becky took her to Bloomingdale's—which Jenny now calls Bloomies—yesterday to buy it.

Becky also took it upon herself to reorganize the apartment's kitchen, which—in keeping with Erica's cooking skills—lacked a laundry list of culinary essentials, e.g., a decent spatula. Erica loves that Becky takes initiative this way—when she's at work she feels like the home front is covered. She's even begun to let Becky take over managing Yelena, who now comes in just two days a week.

Erica's interview with the Ortizes at home was disappointing. After the segment with the two of them, she taped her one-on-one interview with Mike, but Celeste stood just off-camera the entire time—tense, watchful, encouraging, even mouthing answers and generally behaving like a stage mom at a preteen beauty pageant. When it was all over, Erica made a vow to get Mike Ortiz on-camera when Celeste wasn't in
the same room, preferably not even in the same state. Meanwhile, she hasn't let go of her suspicions, unformed as they are, and is taking steps to confirm or disprove them. She's asked one of her researchers to put together a tape showing Mike Ortiz in a variety of situations before and after his time as an Al-Qaeda prisoner.

They walk into the tennis club and there is Lisa Walters, Jenny's classmate, and her dad. Lisa is lovely and well-behaved, and Erica feels a swell of pride that this is Jenny's world now.

“Josh Walters, so great to meet you,” Lisa's father says. He's definitely not a buttoned-down Upper East Side type—he has a curly mop of reddish hair and is wearing cool black linen pants, stylish sandals, and a black T-shirt embossed with an image of a Calder mobile. His eyes are twinkly, his smile is dazzling, and although he looks to be in his midforties, he radiates a natural boyish enthusiasm.

The tennis coach leads Jenny and Lisa onto one of the courts. Erica and Josh move to a small seating gallery.

Lisa misses a ball, and Josh calls out, “You almost had it, honey.” Then he turns to Erica and adds, “I don't think Venus and Serena have anything to worry about.”

“Has Lisa been taking lessons for a while?”

Josh nods. “Her mother is all about tennis and Southampton and getting into Harvard.”

“And what are you all about?”

“Hmm—flea markets and mystery drives and Catskill swimming holes.”

“Sounds like a mixed marriage.”

“Oh, the marriage lasted about as long as it takes to eat an ice cream sandwich in August. Is that a strained metaphor?” He smiles in this self-deprecating way that Erica finds appealing. “I'm all for Harvard, if that's what
Lisa
wants. I went to City College and loved it.”

“May I ask what you do?”

“I make things. Big things. Like huge pencils and coffee cups and shoes. I mean really huge.”

“For . . . ?”

“Fun. For fun. They sell well enough to keep me in flea markets, mystery drives, and Catskill swimming holes. And Brearley tuition.”

“So you're kind of a latter-day hippie.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a man who loves people, loves adventure, and loves being his own boss.”

“Unfortunately, in my business that's not an option.”

“You've done pretty well under the circumstances. By the way, you're much prettier in person.”

Josh Walters is just so sincere, and he's bursting with life—there's no holding back, no game playing, no hidden agenda, no male ego, no self-conscious irony, just an outpouring of goodwill. It's simple but hardly simpleminded—and so refreshing after the countless complications of Erica's life and career. This is a man she feels relaxed with just a few minutes after meeting him.

Josh takes out his phone and shows Erica a couple of pictures of his wares—they're enormous, yes, but also charming, whimsical, and slightly surreal. What a fun way to make a living.

“Very cool,” she says.

“I think you're kind of cool too.”

“I've been called a lot of things in my life, but I think this is my first
cool
.”

“Hey, why don't the four of us go out to lunch after the lesson?”

Erica is a little thrown by the invitation. Clearly there's some chemistry between them—but lunch? This soon? She's not a free woman. Is she? Then she flashes on that picture of Laurel Masson and Greg.

Just then Jenny slams a ball across the net, nailing a shot. Erica leaps up and cheers—“Way to go, Jenny!”—pumping her arms in the air, surprising herself with her outburst.

Josh is laughing, loud and loose and free. “That was a great mom moment!” he says.

I had a great mom moment!

“Hey, lunch sounds wonderful!” Erica says. Then her phone rings.
“I have to take this. Be right back.” She moves away a few steps and answers.

“Erica Sparks? This is Dr. Martin Vander, the Chief of Neurology at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. I'm returning your call. You said it was important.”

“SO I WAS A LAWYER at a fancy midtown firm, making a small fortune, on my way to partner, married to Lisa's mom, Park Avenue apartment, place in the Hamptons—put it all together and I was miserable and bored out of my mind.”

Erica, Josh, Jenny, and Lisa are sitting in a nondescript coffee shop that Josh picked because they make “awesome” omelets sautéed in olive oil. The girls are deep in a whispered conversation—Erica loves seeing Jenny engaged with her classmate, forming an easy friendship.

“And?” Erica asks.

“One spring day I went out to lunch in Central Park. The whole park was blooming around me—and I was wilting. I couldn't face another real estate contract. Sitting there eating my tuna fish sandwich, I had the mother of all
aha!
moments. And I never went back to the office. Best decision I've ever made.”

As much as Erica loves her work, she knows the feeling—there are days when she'd just like to walk away from GNN and reinvent herself. Pack Jenny and a few things in a car, drive out to Colorado or New Mexico, and get a teaching degree. In the time it takes to have the
thought, Erica realizes how ridiculous it is. In spite of the overwhelming stress at times, she
adores
her work.

“And then you founded your own company?”

“I did. Making absurdly enormous objects. Japan is my biggest market.”

Their omelets arrive. Erica ordered spinach and asiago, and it's sublime; the subtle flavor of the olive oil gives it a savory and surprising finish. Josh digs into his food with unrestrained pleasure, looking like a little kid.

“Are you working on any particularly exciting stories now?” he asks.

Erica is tempted to tell him about Mike and Celeste Ortiz, but holds her tongue. She's going to consult with Martin Vander on Monday, and she'll have a better sense of things after that meeting.

“The Buchanan bombing case, of course, is front and center. It's intriguing. Tim Markum is almost a nonperson. He's left virtually no fingerprints, physical or psychic. I have a hard time believing that he acted alone.”

“I know. I'm following it closely. It's fascinating—and deeply creepy. We all know evil exists, that it's around us at all times, but on some level I find murder and terrorism incomprehensible. Getting inside the mind of the killer and thinking about committing a crime, yes. But actually carrying it out . . . I just can't imagine it.”

“That's how most sane people feel,” Erica says.

“I know some of your story, of course,” he says. “You've witnessed a couple of serious traumas. How do you bounce back from something like that?” Josh's face is filled with concern and curiosity. He's gone from little kid to empathetic man, and Erica feels her attraction to him deepen.

“You know, I'm a professional. It's what I signed up for. Of course it's tough to see death, especially gruesome deaths . . .” She struggles to find the right words. She lowers her voice and leans into the table. “It's hard, Josh. Sometimes when I'm struggling to fall asleep at two a.m., I hear their screams and see their faces. They're mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and friends and lovers . . .”

Josh reaches out and squeezes her hand. His hand is slightly rough, and strong.

“When I knew we would be meeting today, I Googled you,” Josh says. “I read about your background, about your childhood up in Maine, your mother's arrests, your struggle. That was really rough stuff, Erica. I think you should be very proud of yourself.” He lowers his voice. “
Bon courage
, young lady.”

His words touch her deeply. “Thank you,” she says, looking into his gray-green eyes.

“Dad, can we go to Serendipity for sundaes?” Lisa asks from the girls' end of the table. The mood is broken, and suddenly Erica is back in a lively Manhattan coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon.

“Yes, we
can
go there, Lisa, but it's such a gorgeous day, how about we all walk over to Central Park, get ice cream pops, and then check out the zoo?”

Jenny looks expectantly at Erica, who says, “Sounds good to me.”

As they walk across the East Side to Fifth Avenue, Josh eagerly points out architectural and cultural highlights. When they reach the park entrance, the girls run ahead of them. Josh turns to Erica—parent to parent—and they both break into big childish grins.

That's when Erica remembers that she's still engaged to Greg.

BECKY SULLIVAN WALKS INTO HER soulless Second Avenue studio sublet in a circa 1960s white brick building—the bricks look like they haven't been washed since. It's one small room that barely fits a queen bed, and its window looks out at the back of another building, so close she could almost touch it. Still, it's home for now. A place where she can be herself.

Becky spent the morning at Erica Sparks's apartment, organizing her books alphabetically. Erica dressed incognito and then went off on some mysterious mission. Becky tried, discreetly of course, to pry some details out of her, but none were forthcoming. It's not that she's nosy, in general that is; it's just because it is
Erica.

Their relationship is going so well. It's meaningful, isn't it? On both sides. Just as Becky hoped it would be. She felt terrible about sending that video of Amanda Rees to Mort Silver. She bought a phone with cash, used it once to send the video, and then threw it down a storm drain. She couldn't let Erica hire an assistant with that sort of sordid background. Really, exposing Amanda was a selfless act.

Becky locks the door behind her, crosses to her bed, kneels down, and pulls a small suitcase out from under it. It's a vintage suitcase she
found at a thrift shop. She runs her hands over it gently, her anticipation growing. Then she snaps it open and lifts the lid. Inside sits Erica's red scarf, neatly folded. Becky brings the scarf to her face and inhales the faint trace of Erica's perfume—Chanel No 5 (Erica has so much class)—and imagines the scarf draped around Erica's long shapely neck. Then she reaches into her purse and pulls out a bar of soap wrapped in tissue paper. She carefully unwraps it. It's Erica's shower soap, half worn down, translucent, unscented. She replaced it with a new bar, of course, from under the sink. Erica probably won't notice. And if she does, she'll think Yelena did it.

Becky imagines Erica in the shower, lathering up her body. She gently strokes the soap. Then she places it in the suitcase, on its bed of tissue, next to the scarf. That's when she notices a long gleaming strand of Erica's hair on the scarf. She reaches down with her thumb and middle finger and delicately grasps the single blond strand. She lifts it up in front of her, where it catches the light and glistens like a dream come true.

Then her phone rings, and her reverie is broken. She picks up her phone with her free hand—it reads
Unknown
. Should she answer it? She has to—she told Erica she would be on call 24/7.

“Yes?”

“Hello, Becky.” It's a woman's voice. Is there the faint trace of an accent of some kind?

“Who is this?”

The woman laughs, a low laugh, a flippant, mocking laugh
.
Then she says, “It's natural, you know.”

“
Who is this?
And what's natural?”

“Why, Erica's hair color, of course.”

ERICA DECIDES TO TAKE THE subway up to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in northern Manhattan. Fame can be a bubble of chauffeurs and first-class flights, and she cherishes opportunities to break out and get a dose of a grittier reality. With no makeup on, and wearing a baseball cap and large sunglasses, she attracts just a few second glances as the 2 train barrels through the black tunnels drilled deep into the city's bedrock.

She gets off in Washington Heights, a vibrant Dominican neighborhood—Latin music blaring from stores and car radios, outdoor displays of exotic produce, dress stores selling neon-hued satin dresses, families laughing and arguing, old men and women sitting in folding chairs watching the passing parade. Erica inhales the sheer pulsing humanity of it all. As immigrants have done since our nation's founding, these people have come to America and made it their own, creating a cultural fusion that lifts her spirit and her heart.

Erica walks west to the vast campus of Columbia-Presbyterian, one of the country's leading research hospitals. It's a throbbing, thriving urban hospital, and the hallways are filled with doctors, nurses, patients, and support staff, all of them looking fully engaged in their
work. She follows a labyrinthian corridor and finds Dr. Martin Vander's office. Vander is considered one of the country's leading neurologists and has written several popular books about exotic neurological disorders. The door to his office is open, and the doctor is sitting at his desk.

“Knock, knock,” Erica says.

“Come in, come in,” Martin Vander says, standing. He's a tall, lean man in his sixties with a slight Dutch accent.

“Thanks so much for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Your call intrigued me.” Vander shuts his office door. “Please, sit.”

Erica does.

“So, tell me a little bit more about your concerns.”

“This is all confidential?”

“Absolutely.”

Erica tells the doctor about Mike Ortiz's inappropriate responses, including the incident with the run-over dog.

“You know, some people just don't like dogs very much,” Vander says with a gentle smile.

“It's not just that. His affect in general seems . . . flat. And he doesn't seem to pick up on emotional clues. At Fred Buchanan's funeral he smiled and waved to the crowd.”

“He's a politician, Erica. He's also a man who underwent profound physical, psychological, and emotional trauma. An experience like that changes a person.”

“Well, maybe my imagination is running away with me. That's why I came to see you. One of my researchers has put together a tape showing Ortiz before and after his time as a prisoner in Iraq.”

“I'm eager to see it.”

Erica takes out her laptop, puts it on Vander's desk, and pulls up the tape. It follows Ortiz from his early political career through today and includes clips of him at a congressional hearing, at the ribbon cutting for a new public school, being interviewed at the start of his humanitarian mission to Iraq, and again after his escape, and it ends with some footage from Erica's recent interview.

Vander watches intently. When the tape is over he sits silently for a moment. Erica can barely contain her expectation.

“Fascinating. There do seem to be subtle changes in his demeanor after his time as a prisoner. A certain flattening. But as I said, trauma on that scale changes a person. I hardly have enough evidence or information to make any sort of definitive diagnosis, or even to speculate with confidence. I'd have to meet and examine the man personally, put him through some tests.”

“That's obviously out of the question. You saw his wife in several of those clips. Did you notice anything strange in their relationship?”

“She certainly seems to keep him on a tight leash.”

“I'd call it a harness.”

“There does seem to be a profound psychic connection between them. Of course, they may just be in love.”

“My concern is that he seems to be under her control in an unnatural way. You've done a lot of writing and research on cults and mind control. Do you see any similarities here?”

“That's a big can of worms, and as I said, I just don't have enough information. It's true I have studied cult members. You see a similar flattening of affect, although Ortiz's is much less pronounced. However, with cult members there's also a lack of personal willpower, a complete surrender of control to the cult leader. I don't see evidence of that here—Mike Ortiz is a driven man. The changes in him are more nuanced.”

“Can you tell me a little more about what happens to cult members?”

“After indoctrination they become less animated. They feel no attachment to their past. Without familiar touchstones, they lose their sense of self and their ability to reason and make decisions for themselves. They become unable to think independently.”

. . . unable to think independently.

“Over time, the brain actually becomes rewired. In many cult members we see a physical manifestation of this, a slowing down of movement and motor reflexes. I'm not seeing that in Ortiz. If his
intellectual skills are compromised—which is by no means certain—it may be the result of an organic brain injury suffered during his captivity. After all, he was tortured. But even there, he's functioning at a very high level.”

“Doctor, Mike Ortiz may well be the next president of the United States.”

“I understand your concerns. And I think the tape demonstrates that they have some validity. The case intrigues me. I'd like to pursue it. Conduct something of an investigation. Paramount would be an opportunity to observe him up close.”

“Ortiz will be in New York next week for a fundraiser. Robert DeNiro is hosting it in his apartment in Tribeca. Is there any chance you could attend?”

“There is a great deal at stake here. And this is a fascinating case. I'll go to the fundraiser.”

“You understand how critical confidentiality is.”

Vander nods solemnly.

Erica puts away her laptop and stands. “I can't thank you enough.”

As she is walking out of the hospital her phone rings, and she sees Eileen McDermott's name on the caller ID.

“Erica, I heard from one of our sources in the FBI that they've just captured Tim Markum in Detroit. Attempting to cross into Canada. He's going to be arraigned before a federal judge tomorrow morning. The FBI hasn't released the news yet because they don't want this to turn into a circus. But they won't be able to keep it under wraps for long.”

“Still, we're a step ahead of the competition. I'll head out to LaGuardia right now. Book us a private jet if the network's plane isn't available. And grab a couple of outfits from my office closet. See you at the airport.”

As Erica steps off the curb and hails a cab, she thinks,
This is just the kind of break I need to get firmly back on top
.