The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear (18 page)

“A renowned moron.” She giggled. “He's been trying to get the Kennedy assassination reopened. The Garrison connection.”

“You know this guy?” No good could come from this. None.

“I know everybody connected to the dead. That's what I do. I drink, I meet people, I write about murders. Let me tell you, this Joey Francis moron must be the happiest guy in the world. We've got murders, carjackings, drive-bys, we've got gambling, a little mob, but hardly ever a real-life bomber. He's thrilled. I promise you.”

“You write about murders?”

She stopped and looked at me, pushing up her sunglasses for the first time. Her eyes were large and piercingly blue.

“You haven't read anything I've written, have you.”

“I read your column yesterday,” I told her.

“But that's it.” She sighed. “It's the New Orleans curse. I'm the Dickens of Death in this town. I write about murders. They love me. But nobody beyond the Causeway has ever heard of me. You're lucky, J.D., you escaped. How'd you do it, huh, J.D.? How'd you slip away?”

“Went to the airport.” She was following me down the street. I needed to get away from her, focus on my other problems. It had been a mistake to meet her.

“And you don't miss what everybody else in this town can't live without? That New Orleans lifestyle thing. The parties. The food. The way nobody really works and that's okay?”

“I love to work. It's all I do. I don't really drink. I think the restaurants are overrated. I hate parties. It was easy.” God, if only she knew. I would have ridden my bike all the way to Washington, if that's what it took to get away from the little house of horrors that was my family.

“Is that how the skinny kid into bikes and guitars took famous?”

“You think I'm famous? We lose this nomination and if I'm lucky nobody will remember me. I'm a
domestique,
that's all.”

“You lost me.”

“It's what they call a bike rider who will never be a star but rides his goddamn heart out so that the team star can win. That's me. I set the pace, I block, I'll crash the other guys if that helps. But that's it. At the end of the day, I'm not the one who's up there on the podium.” I didn't really believe this, but it was a line I had used before with a reporter and it seemed to work. It was just offbeat enough to seem genuine, self-deprecating but believable, since it was a subtle reference to something most reporters didn't remotely understand—bike racing.

“You know why you escaped?” she said. “Because this town never knew what to do with you. Not like your brother. They loved your brother because he made Tiger Stadium rock. And they loved me, because I was the pretty girl who married the football star and gave great parties. But you—”

“I was the skinny guy on a bike. Yeah, I know. And you know what? I just don't care anymore. I really just don't give a shit.” She was annoying me now. I wanted to be somewhere else.

“Maybe,” she said, looking so hard at me I had to turn away. “Maybe. I'm not sure.” She leaned toward me. “So did you get somebody to plant the bomb?”

“Jesus Christ.” I turned and stared at her. “You don't get it. This hurts us. It helps Armstrong George. Bombs are anarchy and he's the answer to anarchy. You guys never get the real story line.”

“You guys?”

“Reporters.” I sighed. This was stupid. Never tell reporters how little they know, even when it's mostly true. It never pays off. Because after you tell them…they are still reporters.

She reached out and touched my face. I pulled back. “You're pretty,” she said. “I never realized it but you're pretty.”

“I think you're a little drunk.”

She smiled. “You're onstage now, J.D. This is your moment. Take it. Don't be like those girls who never realized they were actually good-looking until it was too late. You're the man now. Take the spotlight and enjoy it.”

Then she walked away, leaving me standing on Bourbon Street wondering what she would look like without any clothes on and annoyed at how much the notion intrigued me. Jesus, I was as bad as my old man, just with more predictable tastes.

“MY FELLOW AMERICANS,
I come before you with a heavy heart.”

The president sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, dark circles under his eyes. In the months since he had announced he was not running for reelection, any expected positive change had not occurred in the president's appearance.

“He looks like crap,” said Kim Grunfeld. “The guy is broken.”

We were in our war room at the Windsor Court, which felt far too nice to be a real war room.

“He's gonna screw us,” Dick Shenkoph said good-naturedly.

“Why would he screw us?” asked Kim, who was smoking a small cigar. “He picked Hilda as his VP. It helps him when we win.”

“He's too broken. The possibility of her success haunts him,” Shenkoph said.

“What is that, some kind of quote?” Kim shot back. “You turning into some kind of poet?”

“Trust me, Grunfeld. I know more about failure than you do.”

“Give her time,” Eddie Basha said, then smiled at Kim.

“God, why am I always the only woman?” Kim moaned.

“We haven't noticed. Honest,” Dick Shenkoph mumbled, staring at the screen. “I had sex once in the White House, a little basement alcove near the Situation Room,” he said.

“Bullshit, you've never had sex,” Eddie Basha countered.

“I'm talking a long time ago,” Shenkoph assured him.

I watched all this with a certain detachment, my mind somewhere between Tyler's strip club and Jessie's questions. Walking back to the Windsor Court from that aborted dinner with Jessie, I'd convinced myself that she knew all about Tyler, and if she knew about Tyler, she probably knew all about Powell Callahan and his own, well, predilections and problems. It was the only way to look at it—assume the worst. Hadn't I drummed that into every client of mine over the last fifteen years?

I knew what I'd do if I was advising a client—I'd tell 'em to get everything out in the open right away, dump it all, smother the press with information. That was the creed I'd lived by for years, and whenever a client with a problem resisted, I'd made it clear to them how much worse it would be trying to keep secrets hidden. It was so easy giving the advice. But right now, the idea of watching some reporter—say, Sandra Juarez—announce to the world in a breathless newsbreak that new revelations about the family of Vice President Hilda Smith's campaign manager, J. D. Callahan, had the Republican convention talking, just the thought of that, made me want to throw up. I knew how it would play out: “The implications for Vice President Smith's campaign are unclear, but the vice president released a statement just moments ago clarifying that J. D. Callahan has left her campaign. Let me repeat, J. D. Callahan has resigned as Vice President Smith's campaign manager. Her former campaign manager, Lisa Henderson, who has been serving as chief of staff, will return as campaign manager.”

God, I would cut my wrist with a rusty cat food lid before I let that happen. Forget what it would mean for my budding television career—like flush it forever—it was the sheer, well, humiliation. I couldn't take it.

The president continued: “This violence at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans shall not dissuade us from our purpose. We will find the individual or individuals responsible for this act and bring them to justice. These have been troubling times in America and I understand that many of you are looking for reassurances that our great American values are still alive and well.”

“Danger, danger, danger,” Dick Shenkoph squawked. “Don't like this.”

“That's straight out of Armstrong George,” Kim Grunfeld muttered. “Come on, baby,” she spoke urgently to the president on television. “Don't screw your own veep.”

“This is not the time to turn the other cheek. There is a season for everything, and today it is the season for righteousness and justice. I believe that it is time for Congress to act to give law enforcement new tools to find crime and terrorism. I will work with Congress to ensure the passage of additional effective and powerful legislation to protect the homeland. Enough is enough. It is time for action.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kim Grunfeld moaned. “Son of a bitch.”

“Told you,” Dick Shenkoph said, smiling. “He screwed us.”

“Shit, he did,” Eddie Basha said, surprised. “Christ, how did you know he was going to do that?” he asked Shenkoph.

“In my experience,” Shenkoph said, “weak leaders will do just about anything if they think it makes them look stronger. In my experience.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Kim said. “The president of the United States might as well have just endorsed Armstrong George.”

“Wasn't that bad,” Eddie insisted, not very convincingly. “He didn't say he was supporting Protect the Homeland. Just new legislation. We've got to get every one of our whips on the line fast. Squash this down. Tell everybody it's not a big deal. What's our spin?”

“How about the president is a lying piece of shit who can't be trusted?” Kim Grunfeld suggested.

“What do you think, J.D.?” Eddie asked, and suddenly they were all looking at me.

“I like Kim's spin,” I told them. “I can work with that.”

The telephone calls first broke at the press conference to announce South Dakota delegate Bruce Dent's support for the vice president. It went down perfectly, I have to admit. A perfect little moment of duplicity, so satisfying in its treachery. The only negative was that I decided to leak it to Paul Hendricks, which let him cover himself in a bit of glory. This was troubling, in that Hendricks was not only a jerk but also a looming competitor of mine in my soon-to-be-launched television career, but it was important that the story break with somebody who had enough credibility to make it an Instant Big Deal and not anyone seen as close to me. People knew I didn't like Hendricks, so that made him a safer choice to leak. Like all leaks, it was easy: I just tipped off Hendricks to talk to a few people who had received the calls. This all had to happen fast. We were in hyper mode now, when the day was one rolling news cycle.

“Mrs. Vice President,” Hendricks boomed in his best “I'm a serious reporter” voice, “there are reports circulating that Governor Armstrong George's campaign is engaged in what is known as push polling.”

“Yes?” Hilda Smith answered, looking not at all bothered by the question. This was also perfect. If she seemed outraged from the start, it would have looked like she was overreacting, that the whole thing had been a set-up. For the last six months, she and Armstrong George had been beating each other's brains out with every means possible, from television ads to phone calls. What were a few more negative phone calls? “We've been down that road before,” she said with a sigh.

I had counted on her reaction being genuine, since, of course, she didn't have the slightest idea what Hendricks was talking about.

“Yes, but these calls are of a particularly personal and some might say vicious nature,” Hendricks continued. He had a way of raising his voice and tilting his accent when he was driving home a point that made him sound almost English. Not bad for a kid who went to Holy Cross.

Hilda Smith shrugged. Who could blame her for looking disinterested? She'd had about four hours of sleep; she'd been ambushed by the press at the hospital; the president of the United States, who had appointed her, had just all but endorsed her opponent on national television; and she had just held a press conference to express her deep, eternal gratitude for the support of a young man who had the makings of a totally repugnant human being. A few negative phone calls were not the most troubling element in her life.

When she failed to respond, Hendricks pressed on. “I have confirmed sources, Mrs. Vice President”—here he paused for dramatic effect, turning slightly so that his cameraman would catch him in his best profile—“that these calls made reference to a supposed abortion procedure you had undergone.”

For a long moment, the other press members, who had been grousing restlessly at Hendricks for taking them off the juicy subject of presidential betrayal, were shocked into a rare stunned silence. Had they heard right? Did he just say
abortion procedure
? Then everyone started yelling, none louder than Sandra Juarez: “Is that true, Mrs. Vice President? Did you terminate a pregnancy through surgical means?”

Leave it to Sandra to try to take it up a notch with a juicy explanation of the meaning of abortion.

Hilda Smith stared at the press. Lisa Henderson took a protective step toward her from the side of the ballroom where we were holding the press conference. I didn't move.

“There were other charges as well, Mrs. Vice President,” Hendricks out-shouted everybody. This was his story, goddamn it, and he wasn't going to let anyone hijack the moment.

The vice president seemed to stand a bit straighter, grasping the podium tightly. “I can only assume,” she said finally, in a low but strong voice, “that there is no connection between these reported phone calls and Governor Armstrong George. Such actions would disqualify him, in my opinion, from leading this party and country.”

With that, she turned and walked toward Lisa Henderson, who was standing by the rear exit.

“Did you have an abortion?” Sandra Juarez bellowed.

Vice President Hilda Smith turned, and for an instant her eyes seemed truly to blaze. “The next questions will have to be answered by Governor George.” And then she turned and was gone, the doors leading into the back hall of the ballroom swinging behind her.

I was ecstatic.

For almost an hour, Paul Hendricks was the most important journalist in America. He had the rarest of commodities at an event in which thousands of journalists were crammed into one square mile, all covering the same thing: Paul Hendricks had a scoop.

The networks all broke into regular programming to report the phone calls. Naturally they mostly tried to seem to be reporting on the outrageous nature of politics, that such a subject could even be raised, but of course that was just an excuse to get out three words:
Hilda Smith, abortion
. Begrudgingly, Paul Hendricks of CNN was cited as the reporter who broke the story.

But within the hour, frantic reporters started confirming the story as delegates and others in their hometowns started coming forth and saying, yes, they too had received these polling questions.

The elevator ride back up to our floor was interesting. There was me, Hilda Smith and her husband, Lisa, and six Secret Service agents. Normally there would have been four agents, but that number had been expanded since the bomb went off and the threat level was raised. The agents stared ahead blankly. It was no secret that most of them would have voted for Armstrong George based on politics, but since Hilda was a decent sort of person and tended to remember their names and the names of their wives and children, they had a certain fondness for her. Plus, if she won, it would be good for their careers, since they would likely become the core detail guarding the next president. That was the most plum job for an active agent, to be at the inner circle, the “hard circle,” as they called it, responsible for the protection of the president of the United States. They might have been inclined to express shock or outrage at what had just been said at the press conference, if only to offer a reassuring word or two, but their training and experience had taught them to simply try to disappear, like dinner guests when the host couple starts to argue. Be invisible.

When we got off the elevator, Lisa and I automatically followed our candidate toward her suite, but when we got to the door, she turned and said, with a strained smile, “Give us some time, okay?”
Time?
I should have shouted.
Time? We don't have any time, for Christ's sake.
But I didn't, of course, nor did Lisa. We just nodded and backed away.