The Ninth Wave (35 page)

"Not attract," Mike said. He grinned. "That's not the way it works. The
ten per cent that's undecided is scared. So you scare them into voting
for your man. See, that's what nobody knew before. They didn't know
why the undecided voter was undecided. But I found out. He's undecided
because he's scared."
"And that's what the Second and Third Questions are about?" Georgia
asked. "That's it, isn't it?"
"That's right. That's absolutely right," Mike said. He went back to the
table and picked up some papers that Henri had just finished.
"Here's the Second Question," Mike said. He threw the paper on the
sill. "Usually the polls just ask who's going to win. But I asked a
couple of extra questions."
"What's the Second Question?"
"The Second Question is: 'In general, what sort of things do you worry
about?' That's all."
"What did people say?" Georgia asked.
Georgia hesitated. She felt a nag of irritation. She looked out the
window again. The woman was sitting up. She opened her mouth and a spill
of red liquid gushed from her lips. She smiled wanly at the dentist.
His left hand was again reassuring. The right hand fumbled with a new
burr; a bright sharp piece of steel.
"I don't know. Communism or the atom bomb or war . . . something like
that," she said. "Maybe they're not worried about anything."
"Everybody worries about something," Mike said. "And if they're approached
by a neatly dressed interviewer who says their answer will be confidential
they blurt it out. Like you. Tell me what you worry about most." He
pointed his finger at her. "Go ahead. Don't think. Just say it."
Georgia looked at his finger, at the neat white crescent of his fmgernail,
the strong bony undulations. She looked over at the machine. It rested
quietly.
"I won't tell you."
"All right," Mike said and laughed. "But you had an answer. That's
the important thing. Everybody does. And their answers fall into four
classes. The first class is what I call 'Economic Worries.' That's for
guys who are worrying about payments on the television set or unemployment
or the cost of living. The second class is 'International Worries';
like fear of a war, a catastrophe with Russia, reciprocal trade, Red
China . . . that sort of thing. The third is 'National Worries.' That's
for people worrying about the national debt, Communists in government,
politics, that kind of answer. The fourth is 'Personal Worries.'" He
grinned and shook his head. "That's for the guy who is worrying about
being impotent or his kid getting polio or if the boss likes him or
if his clothes look like a hick's. That's the kind of thing you were
worrying about. Right?"
"Yes," she said. She did not even feel curiosity. "It was a personal
worry."
The dentist took the drill from the woman's mouth and already it was a
bright dab of blood.
Georgia looked down at the paper.
Economic Worries 43%
Personal Worries 49%
National Worries 5%
International Worries 3%
"I don't believe it," Georgia said. She stared at the. paper. "Only
eight per cent of them worry most about war and depression and the atom
bomb. The rest are worried about their jobs and themselves. I don't
believe it." Mike laughed and she knew he did not believe her. "What
can you do with this information?"
"Wait till you look at the Third Question," he said. He put the paper
on the sill. "The Third Question was 'What group, in general, do you
think is most dangerous to the American way of life?' Any guesses about
the results?"
"No," Georgia said. "Not anymore."
"The answers always fall into five categories," Mike said. "Just like
clockwork. First, the people who say Big Business or Wall Street or
the Bankers or Rockefellers or General Motors. I call that the 'Big
Business' category. Second is the 'Trade Union' category. That's obvious
. . . anyone who says trade unions or Walter Reuther or John L. Lewis;
Third is the 'Communist Conspiracy' category. Fourth is a category you
won't like much. It's the 'Jewish Conspiracy' category. That's where
you put the people who say the Jews or International Jewry or Bernard
Baruch. The fifth group is the 'Religious Conspiracy' . . . people that
say the Pope or the Catholics or 'those snotty Episcopalians' or 'those
Mormons and all their wives' . . . that sort of thing."
Georgia looked down at the paper.
Big Business 32%
Trade Unions 22%
Communist Conspiracy 11%
Jewish Conspiracy 21%
Religious Conspiracy 14%
"What does it mean, Mike?" she whispered. "How do you make politics out
of it?"
"That's the end of the scientific part of it," Mike said. "To make
politics out of it you use your common sense, your intuition."
"Sure. But what do you do? How do you use the answers?"
The dentist bent forward and his back tensed. The woman's legs suddenly
went rigid, lifted off the footrest. Her hands tightened on the armrests.
Then she relaxed. The dentist stood back with a bloody tooth held in
heavy forceps. The woman sat up and spit into the bowl. She was very
pale. Georgia fell some plug of anxiety pull loose in her mind; she felt
almost gay. She was ready for Mike's answer.
"I tell them what to be scared of," Mike said. "It's as simple as that."
He picked up the ten per cent of the cards left in the box. He held
them in his hand like a small club and slapped them hard on the window
sill. They made a loud cracking sound. Georgia twitched as if she had
been hit on the spine.
"Scared?" she asked.
"Sure . . . scared. That's what the rest of than are afraid to do;
the politicians, the professors, the clubwomen, the bureaucrats, all
of them. They're afraid to ask the questions I asked and if they did
they'd be afraid to use the answers. But I'm not. And it's so simple.
Most of the voters don't care about politics. They're bored. It's faraway,
distant, meaningless. They vote out of habit, because they've been told
to vote. And they always vote Democrat or Republican. Everybody knows
this, but the more obvious it becomes the more everyone feels that they
have to tell the voter that he's smart and has a lot of power . . . that
he's important. But the really important ones are the eight, or ten per
cent that're scared. They're the real independents, the people whose
vote can be changed."
"Can you change their vote?" she asked.
"Yes. I can."
She looked at Mike. Then she looked out the window. The dentist's chair
was empty. A neat nurse was laying out fresh aseptic linen, shining
new tools.
"I want to see you do it, Mike," she said.
He took her arm to lead her out of the room and through the thick soft
material of the coat he could feel a slight shivering.
CHAPTER 21
The Convention
The road to Fresno was lined with vineyards. Clumps of tiny green grapes
hung from the branches. Occasionally a spray rig moved down the rows,
the mist drifting from the nozzles in great glittering shreds and making
the vines glisten wetly under the sun. Once they passed a winery and
saw a railroad tank car backed up to the building. Wine, a huge thick
red gush of it, poured from a hose into the tank car and a pink spray
rose from the opening; tinctured the air. Far away the hills were green
and fresh, but they simmered in the thin heat of early spring. The sunny
slopes were already turning brown; very softly and slowly.
"When we get to Fresno, I'm going to get a bottle," Hank said from
the back seat. "I need some relaxation. So don't count on me for the
convention."
Georgia did not turn around, but Mike nodded.
"Do whatever you want," he said. "I don't give a damn. I just want to
get you out of the hospital for a little while."
Hank narrowed his eyes and watched the vines in the distance turn from
a green mass into separate vines, separate into rows and then suddenly
snap by the window of the car. He was irritated.
"Why don't the Democratic bosses just decide by mail who the candidate
will be?" Hank said. "Save the expense of a convention."
"Hankus, you've got bosses on the brain," Mike said. "There aren't
bosses anymore in politics. Wait till you see this bunch in Fresno. They
aren't bosses."
"Who says there aren't bosses?"
"I say. That's old stuff; Lincoln Steffens stuff. The party boss depended
on two things: graft and immigrants. All the immigrants would come
trooping into a town; couldn't speak the language and too dumb to find
work. So the boss would give them a job wiping blackboards in a public
school or a pick-and-shovel job and they give him their votes. With
the votes he'd put his people in office and then collect whatever graft
was around."
"And I suppose that's all changed?" Hank said ironically.
"Hank, they have machines in Sacramento that would turn up graft money
in two minutes. Just take roads. The boss used to let the contract go
to his brother or uncle and they'd put in lousy material and overcharge
the state. Nobody was the wiser. But now all construction jobs are
publicized, bids are solicited, opened publicly and then awarded to the
lowest bidder. And the immigrants stopped coming . . . or they started
making two-fifty an hour screwing bolts on Fords and they own cottages
in the suburbs. No immigrants, no graft, no nothing."
"So nobody gets anything out of politics today?"
"I didn't say that," Mike said. "Hell yes, some people get something out
of politics. Take Georgia's daddy. If all goes well he'll benefit. But not
by grafting; not by having a boss who's his friend and does him a favor.
He'll benefit by changing the law. The law will be changed publicly; out
where everyone can see it. That's not graft. That's making something legal
that you want to do. Or making something illegal that you don't want done."
Hank saw Mike's grin in the mirror; twisted squat and huge by the distortion
in the glass. Georgia looked back at Hank; her face expectant.
Hank started to reply and sensed that it was useless. Not if the laws
were changed publicly by the representatives of the people.
"What kind of people come to this convention?" Hank asked.
"Middle-class, college-educated people," Mike said. "Doctors, lawyers,
professors . . . maybe a few do-gooding housewives. They're the ones
that remember their civic lessons when they grow up: be a doer, an
activist . . . work hard and keep politics out of the hands of the
bosses. You'll see."
Ahead of them a low-slung truck was moving down the highway. It was
heaped high with freshly picked carrots and a few of the carrots spilled
out onto the highway, left a-green and orange track behind the truck.
Mike rushed down the trail of carrots, exploding them under his tires
with a sharp popping sound. Behind the Cadillac the carrots were turned
into little mashed heaps of orange fiber. Mike swung around the truck,
and the highway was clean and unblemished. He went faster.
They came to the big clover-leaf intersection outside of Fresno and ten
minutes later they arrived at the Hotel Conquistador. Over the marquee
of the hotel was a large cloth sign that said "Welcome Democrats."
When they walked through the lobby they saw a huge blown-up photograph
beside one of the lounges. Over the entrance to the lounge a sign said,
"Dick Cutler for Governor HDQ'S." The face on the blow-up was round
and honest like the face of a very fat child. The picture was so huge,
however, that the pores on Cutler's nose, the hairs in his ears and a
wart along his chin looked outsized. His face looked as if it were wet.
"That's the competition," Mike said. "He's a big car dealer from San
Fernando and he's got lots of money."
Mike had reserved three adjoining rooms for them. When they registered,
he had their bags sent up and then asked what room Cromwell had.
Only Cromwell and Clara were in the room. Clara was sitting in a chair
in the corner. She lit a cigarette, held it in her fingers, her hand
cupped over her cheek. She glared at Mike over her knuckles.
"Cutler's already made his move," Cromwell said as the door closed. "His
people are giving cocktail parties in every motel in Fresno, they've
passed out lapel buttons and you saw that blow-up picture when you came
in the lobby. He's going to beat us, Mike."
Cromwell stopped pacing, stood rigidly in one position and scratched his
nose. He stared suspiciously at Hank and Georgia and then ignored them.
"Don't worry, John," Mike said. "Things are going to be all right."
"Whadda you mean, all right?" Clara said. "No pins, no cocktail parties,
no banners, no placards, no quarter cards, no nothing. And he says don't
worry. This isn't a League of Women Voters meeting, Mike. This is the
real thing."
Cromwell started to pace again. He searched his pockets for a cigar,
could not find one. He picked up a cigarette from a table, stuck it in
his mouth. A shred of paper stuck to his mouth. His tongue licked at it.
The cigarette came apart in his mouth, pieces of wet tobacco flecked
over his lips. He wiped his mouth harshly. The grains of tobacco were
black against the fabric of his sleeve. He dropped the ruined cigarette
on the rug and stepped on it.
"It's going to be all right," Mike said. "You just do two things, don't
drink too much and don't be seen with Clara." Cromwell wheeled and looked
at Mike. His hands trembled across his vest pockets, vainly searching
for a cigar. His eyes were angry.
"Listen, Mike, don't go too far," he said. "I'm not . . . "
"At a convention like this people get all concerned about personal
morals," Mike said. "Some of them might think that Clara's your
mistress. There's been talk about that before."
Clara sat motionless in the chair. She pushed her hand flat against her
birthmark, as if it were suddenly hot.
"I'll stay out of sight," Clara said.
"That's a good girl," Mike said. "Now I'm going to go out and scout
around a little."
Mike led Hank and Georgia out to the elevator. As they waited for the
elevator they heard a door open and Clara came down the corridor. She
stopped a few feet from Mike. She carefully looked away from his face.
"Look, Mike. You get him that nomination, understand?" she said. "You
said you would. You told him. He left everything to you. Now you get
it." Her voice was fierce.