The Run (13 page)
“Why didn’t you fence it?”
“Too soon. Everybody in the Northwest has heard that an armored car got hit. The feds are everywhere. We’ll keep it a year or two, then sell it to somebody who can get it out of the country.”
“Makes sense,” Zeke said.
Harv went to the woodbox beside the fireplace and removed six bundles, tossing one to each man. “A quarter of a million each,” he said. “I took my organizational fee and some expenses off the top.”
“Fair enough,” Zeke said, examining the bundle. The money was tightly packed and shrink-wrapped, then wrapped in brown paper.
“Don’t go splashing out that stuff,” Harv said. “The feds will be sniffing around, and we don’t want some citizen reporting that he took a lot of cash in payment for something. Let it cool off for a while.”
The other men nodded.
Harv glanced at his watch and picked up a remote control. The satellite TV came on. They were on mountain time, and the Sunday morning political shows were coming on. “Take a look at this guy,” Harv said. “Any of you know him?”
“I know him,” Zeke said.
“That’s right, you’re from Georgia. What do you think about him?”
“I think he’s everything that’s wrong with this country, all wrapped up in one man.”
“Maybe we should turn our attention to him; it’s been a while.”
“You better believe it,” Zeke growled. “Some friends of mine tried to take him out nine years ago, when he was first running for the Senate, but it all blew up in their faces.”
“Was this Willingham and The Elect?” Harv asked.
“Yeah; he and another guy bought it, and the rest scattered, including me. That guy has been too hot to touch since then.”
“What do you think about now?”
“I think if he got elected president, things would get worse for us. Christ knows I don’t have any use for Republicans, but I’ll be goddamned if I want another Democrat running things, especially this one.”
“Well, we’re refinanced now,” Harv said. “You want to take this on?”
“It would be my privilege,” Zeke said. “I’ll take ten thousand from each of you for expenses.”
The others nodded and began breaking open their packets of bills.
Zeke watched the image on the screen. “He’s got it coming,” he said.
It was Will’s third Sunday-morning television program. He sat behind a desk and stared into the hot eyes of Barnabas Pauling, a right-wing political commentator known inside the Beltway as the Prince of Fucking Darkness, or Pod, for short.
“Senator Lee,” Pod was saying, “your past is riddled with incidents of your placing expensive social programs ahead of fiscal responsibility…”
“Name three,” Will said.
“Let’s take welfare reform,” Pod said.
“I voted
for
welfare reform,” Will said.
“You also voted for a number of amendments designed to destroy welfare reform, before you finally gave in and cast your vote.”
“There were gaping holes in the welfare-reform bill and there were a lot of children in those holes. I and some other sensible people tried to make the blow fall less harshly on them.”
“Whatever,” Pod said. “Now, your love for these
liberal
programs…”
“What programs are those?” Will asked.
“You know very well which programs I mean,” Pod replied hotly.
Do you mean bills designed to improve public education? To fortify the Head Start program? To subsidize school lunches for kids whose parents can’t afford them? Those are programs that the vast majority of Americans think are very important to the kind of country we live in.” Will was glad it was color television, because Pod was turning red, now.
Sir,” Pod said, his voice rising, “this country cannot afford a lot of new social programs.”
“They’re hardly new,” Will replied. “Our people have been relying on them for a long time.”
Pod turned to the moderator, who was suppressing a smile. “Ben, it’s clear I’m not going to get any straight answers out of Senator Lee.”
“Come on, Barney,” Will said, “ask me some straight questions.”
All right, Senator,” Pod spat, “where do you stand on the balanced-budget amendment?”
“I’m all for a balanced budget and against the amendment. I think we ought to have the guts to balance the budget without mangling the Constitution.”
“I thought so. How about gun control?”
“I’ve hunted all my life, and I don’t want to make it more difficult for legitimate sportsmen to own hunting rifles and shotguns, but guns ought to be licensed so we know who owns them.”
“So they can be confiscated by the government?”
“I don’t know of any law that allows the government to go around confiscating lawfully owned weapons, do you?”
“That’s what people of your political stripe want, isn’t it?”
“Nonsense. What I want is to keep as many guns as possible out of the hands of criminals and crazy people.”
“The criminals are going to get handguns, anyway,” Pod said.
“Not if we stop them.”
With that, the moderator called on another commentator for questions, and Will greeted them with a smile.
Will walked quickly toward the car, with Tim Coleman hurrying to keep up. “Senator, I don’t think you ought to get nose-to-nose with guys like Pauling this early in the campaign.”
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it,” Will said. “Besides, Moss is telling us that I need name recognition out there in the country. I wouldn’t mind being remembered by the voters as the guy who didn’t take any shit from the Prince of Fucking Darkness.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Tim said. “I hope so.”
“Moss is doing another poll tomorrow, to see if the announcement and the Sunday-morning shows have had any effect.”
“I wouldn’t count on too much.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get. Until we can qualify for public campaign financing we’re going to be chronically short of money. I had to pay all the rent on the new headquarters in advance, and that wasn’t much fun.” They got into a car driven by a volunteer. A man Will didn’t know was sitting in the front passenger seat.
“Morning,” Will said, sticking out his hand. “We haven’t met; I’m Will Lee.”
“Agent Williams,” the man said. “Secret Service. We had trouble catching up with you this morning, Senator.”
“I didn’t mean to be evasive, but we’ve been moving fast.”
“There’s another agent behind us in the car. With your permission, I’d like one of our people to do the driving from now on. This young lady wouldn’t give up the wheel.”
“Kathy,” Will said, laughing, “next stop, let the man drive.”
“I want to see his license,” the girl said. Everybody laughed, including the agent.
“It’s just that we’re trained in evasive-action techniques,” the agent said.
“I could have used you in the television studio a minute ago,” Will said.
They drove to the new headquarters, and Will mingled with the Georgia volunteers, accepting a slice of pizza along the way. There were two television crews in the building, and he was giving running interviews.
“We hear Kiel is announcing tomorrow,” a reporter said to Will.
“Be nice to have somebody to argue with besides Barnabas Pauling,” Will said.
“Looks like you had the morning shows all to yourself,” the reporter said.
“I’m sure Mr. Kiel will be all over them next week.”
“Nevertheless, you got the jump.”
“I’m going to need all the jumps I can get.”
Will sat at the kitchen table with Kate, eating pasta and shrimp and watching a videotape of his performance on the Sunday shows.
“You stopped Pod in his tracks,” Kate said.
“That’s no real victory,” Will replied. “The hardcore right wing will see it as Pod’s win, not mine.”
“The rest of the country would have enjoyed it, though.”
“I hope so.”
“What’s on for tomorrow?”
“Didn’t I tell you? First trip to New Hampshire. The primary is only seven weeks away.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Sweets; it’s going to be like that for a while.”
“I suppose so. You better take your long underwear.”
“I don’t have any long underwear. Anyway, Tim says they’re having their mildest winter in years.”
Kate put her hand on his cheek. “Just don’t freeze your ass off. It’s mine, remember?”
Will stood at the factory gate, freezing his ass off in eight inches of fresh snow, his chest racked with coughing and his nose streaming, and wondered why he had ever wanted to do this. His shoes were soaking wet, his overcoat was not heavy enough for a New Hampshire winter, and his new long underwear clung damply to his body, making him colder instead of warmer. All he could think of was bourbon and a roaring fire. It was five o’clock and already dark. This was his eighth appearance of the day, and he still had two to go. Two Secret Service agents lurked a few feet away; Will had demanded that they back off.
The whistle blew, and, a moment later, men and women began streaming out of the plywood plant, gathering their winter clothes about them. Will saw they were all wearing snow boots. Why hadn’t somebody thought of that? “Hi,” he said, taking off a thin glove and thrusting a bare hand at an approaching man. “I’m Will Lee, and I’m running for president.”
The man stopped but didn’t take the offered hand. “You a Republican or a Democrat?”
“I’m a Democrat,” Will replied, smiling.
“Then go fuck yourself,” the man said, and continued on his way.
Will’s instinct was to aim a kick at the man’s ass, but a woman was standing in front of him, shaking his hand. “Hey,” she said. “I heard you say something at the football game last night. I liked it, and I might vote for you.”
“I really appreciate that,” Will said, wiping his nose with a sodden handkerchief. He was probably going to give half the town his cold.
“I like that stuff about the middle,” she said.
“The New Center,” Will corrected. He was anxious to stop some of the other people who were moving past him. “Good luck to you.”
“And to you,” she said, then went on her way.
Will got a couple of dozen people to acknowledge his presence before the crowd was gone, and he was left standing in the snow. A campaign volunteer, a college student from south Georgia, handed out the last of her leaflets and came over to him. “Senator, you look awful,” she said.
“I feel awful,” he replied. “I hope the van is running; I’m freezing, too.”
“I’ll get it started,” she said cheerfully, and ran ahead.
Will trudged through the wet snow, feeling like a character out of
Dr. Zhivago
. An agent opened the door for him, then got into the backseat. The van was cold soaked, and the girl was having trouble getting it started. Finally, it came to life, and a rush of icy air came out of the vents. “Don’t switch this thing off again, until we return it to the rental company,” Will said.
The girl, whose name he could not remember, ran her gloved hand over the icy inside of the windshield, where their breath had frozen, and cleared a tiny portion of the glass. She drove, seeing nothing that could not be seen through the six-by-six-inch spot.
“We’re going to end up in a snowdrift, and they won’t find us until spring,” Will said. “How do people live in weather like this?”
“It ain’t Georgia, is it?” the girl said. “Freeze your buns off.” As she turned a corner, the van began to move sideways. “Oh, shit,” she said under her breath as she spun the wheel into the skid. She was too late; the van slid, broadside, into a large SUV idling at the curb.
“I’ll take care of this,” the agent said, opening the rear door.
“No, I’ll do it,” Will said. “You stay out of it.” He waited while the girl inched the van forward so that he could get the door open. Thank God there was no TV crew, he thought.
A large man was climbing out of the vehicle, while a woman waited in the front seat.
“It was our fault entirely,” Will said, preempting the man’s coming outburst. “My driver has never driven in snow before, and I want to make this right. What do you think the damage is?”
The man stopped in his tracks and turned to look at his damaged car. “I reckon a good fifteen hundred bucks,” he said.
Will dug a checkbook and a pen out of his pocket. “Let’s make it two thousand; bodywork is expensive these days.”
“Fifteen hundred will do it,” the man said wearily. “Make it out to Harry Hoskins.”
Will wrote the check and handed it to the man. “I’m really very sorry,” he said. “I know what an in
convenience this is going to be for you, and I wish there were something more I could do.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m Will Lee, and I’m running for president. I hope this won’t cost me your vote.”
The man laughed. “Senator, you’re the fifth candidate I’ve met today; there’s two in the supermarket over there. Good luck to you.” He got into his car and drove away.
Will climbed back into the van, which was now a few degrees warmer than the outside air. “Let’s go.”
The girl was practically in tears. “I’m so sorry, Senator; I don’t know what happened.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mary Ann,” he said, suddenly remembering her name. “Make a note to rent cars with snow tires from now on.”
“Yessir,” she said.
Will sighed and fell fast asleep.
He was jolted awake as the van struck the curb.
“We’re here,” Mary Ann said. “It’s the Kiwanis Club meeting, in the basement of the town hall, right there.” She pointed. “I’ll leave the engine running.”
Will struggled out of the van. There was a man waiting at the front door of the hall to take him inside. Will peeled off his light topcoat and stamped the snow off his feet, leaving a puddle behind him. He was shown to the head table, shaking hands all the way, and a bowl of hot soup was put in front of him. He got that down gratefully, then started on the fried chicken, which wasn’t bad. By the time he was ready to speak he was warm, if damp, and very sleepy. His missed his first cue, then hopped up and went to the microphone. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.