‘That’s what they pay me for. And even if we pull it off that won’t stop the questions. Did Waters take drugs? Was he gay? Did he belong to a terrorist organization? The local hate radio boys and girls will be slandering him every time they’re on mike. And they’ll use that slander to paint our whole campaign.’
‘He wasn’t gay and he didn’t take drugs and he sure wasn’t in favor of terrorism,’ Lucy said. As she spoke her voice rose defensively.
‘God,’ Kathy said, ‘those brochures with Jeff in all those tuxedos and dinner jackets and with all those bimbos. Think what the radio jerks can do with them.’
‘He told me they were all from very good families,’ Lucy said. She sounded serious.
Kathy joyously put a maternal hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Sweetheart, we know he got a bj from one of those very good family girls in the parking lot of a Burger King one night. And I mean outside the car.’
‘God,’ Lucy said. ‘I forgot.’
Kathy smiled devilishly at me. ‘That was probably the one and only time he was ever at a Burger King, by the way.’
I spent the next hour and a half going through every newspaper in the state. They all had extensive websites. Then I went to the sites of the TV and major radio stations. The coverage ran predictably. The conservative sources had already turned Jim Waters’ murder into a mystery with hints of the diabolical. ‘Friends said that although they liked him, he was often strange and secretive. He had worked as a speechwriter for Congressman Ward for three years, even during the time that the congressman was under suspicion for seeing several women outside his marriage.’ Nice way to work that in. If they’d had more time they would have worked Ward’s history to include bedwetting, public nose picking and leading terrorist cells in singing anti-American rap songs.
The more moderate outlets, print and electronic alike, weren’t as hostile but most made the point that with the election so close a murder was not exactly what the congressman needed. They all cited the noon press conference and predicted that it would be well attended. Then I saw a quote from a fat junkie who had a radio show. It was a long quote. I could only stomach a few sanctimonious lines of it. God and family values. I wondered what any of his three former wives would make of it.
As I was about wrapping things up I decided to check on Burkhart’s site. Any kind of official comment would wait until after the press conference of course but Sylvia had gotten her first shot in already. ‘I want to offer the Waters family our true condolences. I’m told he was a very bright young man and an extremely hard worker. This is why it is so important that our youth get off to the right start. They get caught up in all these liberal causes and they lose their way. You can’t have a mission that includes drugs and sex and a belief that big government can solve everything and expect to stay sane. I’ve seen a lot of my friends destroyed by these things in my lifetime. I certainly hope this wasn’t the case with poor James Waters.’
Well, she hadn’t included horse fucking anywhere in her list of liberal sins so I guess that put us ahead of the game.
When my cell phone toned I was glad to see the name Sarah Conrad on the caller ID. My twenty-two-year- old daughter was a senior at Smith. She planned to work for my firm over the summer as she had the last two summers. Then she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Right now she had a live-in boyfriend, Robert, who was an intern at a local hospital.
‘Hi, honey.’
‘Hi, Dad.’ But it wasn’t the usual happy ‘Hi, Dad.’ This one was serious. ‘You busy?’
‘You all right?’
‘Dad, Mom has third-stage breast cancer.’ Now I could tell she’d been crying.
Norman Mailer once wrote that the most powerful word in the world was cancer. He knew what he was talking about. I had a dozen thoughts and no thoughts at all. I had to say something, but what? ‘When did you find out?’
‘About twenty minutes ago. Andy called me from the hospital. She’s there having more tests. Since he’s a doctor there he can get her through pretty fast. He said she should be home in two hours.’
Dr Andy Connelly was the man Erin had left me for. I was long past blaming her; the fact that I was gone sometimes for three weeks running hadn’t exactly been conducive to a good marriage. She warned me about it the last four or five years we were together. Her resentment, her anger, her loneliness. She was raising Sarah alone, she said. She was tired of going to movies and concerts and dinners alone, she said. She wanted me back, she said. And then one day she didn’t. She came into our bedroom as I was packing and she told me about Andy and how she’d fallen in love with him and how she was sorry and how I could see Sarah just about whenever I wanted. And how she had instructed her lawyer to ask for very little. Then she said she was sorry again and left the room. She wasn’t waiting for me by the front door as usual with a hug and kiss. I have virtually no memory of the next thirty- six hours. Maybe an alien swooped down and picked me up and took me to the planet Evunom. Shock. I couldn’t form coherent thoughts.
I was having the same trouble now.
‘Andy said he’d like you to call her. She wants to talk to you.’
I didn’t say it out loud but I thought how awkward he must have felt passing along that message. I’d met him three or four times over the years. We’d been painfully cordial with each other but when it came to real conversation we both floundered. I’d liked him more than I’d intended to. Sarah had convinced me over the years that he was a great stepfather and had made her mother very, very happy. Something I’d been too selfish to do, even though I’d always known that I’d never love anyone else the way I loved Erin.
‘You’ll have to give me her number, honey.’
‘I’ve got it here. You ready?’
I wrote it down. ‘Tell Robert I want him to take you out for a very good dinner tonight and get you drunk.’
Her laughter was frail but real. ‘He’s second shift at the hospital. That means if he does take me out it’ll have to be after ten o’clock. The new head doc has it in for interns. He hasn’t given Robert the day shift in three months. Only his pets get them.’ Then: ‘I’m scared, Dad. Robert’s still here so he walked me through everything as well as he could without seeing a specific diagnosis. He told me how staging people can be deceptive. How it’s not always as bad as it sounds.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
‘He loves me, Dad. He loves Mom, too. He wants to make us feel better. I just hope he’s not keeping anything back.’ Then: ‘Oh, there’s somebody at the door. Can I call you a little bit later? I know none of us go to Mass anymore but say some prayers for Mom, will you?’
‘I sure will, honey.’ invasive non-invasive ductal carcinoma lobular phyllodes tumor angiosarcoma
These were just a few of the words I encountered over the next hour as I battled my way through at least twenty different websites dealing with breast cancer. An alien language, to be sure. One would give me a modicum of hope, the next would dash it. They were all dealing with the same facts, or so it seemed to my ignorant eye, so it was the writing that made the difference. I opted for the more reassuring assessments, though none were really all that hopeful anyway.
It was close to noon. I managed to get out of the building without anybody seeing me. I found a tavern six blocks away that offered the balm of beer and microwave pizza. You couldn’t go wrong with that combination.
Kathy and Lucy were looking at a computer screen together when I walked past the conference room. Kathy glanced up and said, ‘Dev, I’ve got some news for you.’
I walked in and helped myself to a cup of coffee while they finished up looking at some new demographic breakdowns on Ward’s base. Apparently they were still worried that more than six percent of union voters would end up in Burkhart’s column even though Burkhart was actively anti-union. The American tradition — voting against your own interests.
I sat at the conference table trying not to think about Erin. Work was my only hope. Work would keep me sane.
They finished in a few minutes.
Kathy got some coffee for herself and sat across the table from me. Lucy closed up the laptop and took it with her after waving goodbye to us.
‘The Porsche was registered to a Pellucidar Corporation. I typed in the name on Google and got nothing. Then I tried Bing. No luck there, either. I found it ten minutes later. All that was listed was the name and the explanation that Pellucidar was in the business of selling audio equipment for stage shows and outdoor concerts. None of the
