‘You’re probably right. I read some of the recent speeches you wrote for Ward. They’re excellent.’
‘Oh, hell, they weren’t anything special.’ He waved my words away, looking uncomfortable. ‘I wrote better ones last year.’
I gave him my card. ‘I’ll be eating at the hotel tonight. Just give me a call.’
‘I will. I–I’ve got some things we need to talk about.’ Another awkward look, and then he swung around and headed quick and dead-on to the door.
As he left I got another scent of Halloween season. Then I happened to notice the blonde in the silver Porsche. She was almost directly across from me so I got a good look at her face. She was one of those fashionable country club women, all blonde and sculpted and self-reverent, like a sexual icon you could admire but never know. Just now she raised a camera with a long lens to her face and began snapping away. Since Waters was the only person on the street and since her lens moved with him as he walked, there was no doubt he was her subject.
She adjusted the lens once then put the camera down. Half a minute later she shot out of her parking space and bulleted into traffic. I’d already written the license number down.
Who would be following Waters to photograph him? I felt pretty certain she wasn’t federal or local law. I also felt certain that he was in trouble of some kind.
‘Ready for another cookie?’
I had to pry my gaze from the street. What the hell was going on? ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ I pointed to the nearly empty pan. ‘You’re beating your best time. It’s been about ten minutes and they’re almost gone.’
‘As I said, that makes me happy. I’m an empty nester. We had three kids and they’re all grown and gone now. This brings them back. Sort of.’
I took a bite. I hoped the hotel food was this good. ‘Did Jim talk about me?’
‘Yes.’ Her brow tightened. ‘He’s afraid you’ll get him fired. I hope that’s not true.’
‘It isn’t. Not in any way.’
She sighed and mimed fanning herself. ‘Whoosh. Good. I’ve gotten to know him over the past month and a half. I just feel sorry for him. He lost his brother in a boating accident three years ago, he told me. But I’m sure it goes back before that. He’s the nerdy boy who tells you how superior he is every once in a while. You know, being defensive. I’ve seen him once or twice try to come on to women around here and it’s painful to watch. People are so cruel to him and he doesn’t know how to defend himself. He’s so down on himself and people sense that and they make jokes about him. A lot of the time to his face.’
‘Has he ever said anything to you about being in trouble?’
She set the last three cookies on a plate then picked up the metal sheet she’d baked them on. ‘That’s a strange question.’ She now took the time to examine me. ‘I don’t know if I should be talking about anything… private.’
‘I’ve spent a little time with him and noticed that he seems worried about something. Innocent question. My name’s Dev Conrad, by the way. I’m working with the campaign for a few days.’
She stood the cookie sheet on its end and set her hands on it. ‘He had tears in his eyes the other day. I asked him what was wrong. And I thought it was funny because he wouldn’t tell me. He just shrugged and said maybe it would all work out. He usually tells me everything. Or at least that was the impression I had. He might have been holding a lot back from me all this time. I can’t be sure. But whatever this was it made him very upset. I’d never seen him quite that way, really depressed. Later I saw him up at the front window, staring out at the street. I walked up to him. He jerked away from me. I’d really scared him. I felt sorry for embarrassing him because people started looking at him. I know he was mad at me for a few minutes so I walked away. I really felt that I’d betrayed him in some way.’
The street. The Porsche. Being followed. So he’d been aware of it. Would he bolt if I brought up any of this tonight over dinner? There was definitely a spy in the campaign. I wasn’t sure what he was involved in but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the man I was looking for.
‘Thanks very much, Joan.’
She held her cookie sheet in front of her like a shield. ‘Just be easy with him, Dev. He needs all the friends he can get.’
As I nodded and walked away, I wondered if he had any special friends in the Burkhart camp.
FOUR
T here was a cafe in the hotel where I was staying. Before going up to my room I decided to have another cup of coffee. I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t have any trouble taking a nap after a day’s worth of regular coffee. And a nap was what I was planning.
The cafe was busy with people who had decided that the food here was what they wanted instead of the more dramatic feast awaiting them in the hotel restaurant. I found a copy of the day’s Chicago Tribune and took one of the few empty booths.
Tuning out the clamor took a few minutes. Dishes clattering, waitresses calling out orders to the cooks, laughter, the occasional shout of ‘We’re over here!’ and the hostess asking me if I was sure all I wanted was coffee. This was how she let me know that she didn’t like the idea — not at all — that I was taking up a booth for a lousy two-dollar cup of coffee. It wasn’t worth explaining that I would have been happy to sit at the counter but all the stools were taken.
The Trib did an extensive rundown of state races. According to their numbers we were only four points behind Burkhart. They noted that we’d been down but were struggling back now. This was the best kind of press and I hoped the local TV news people would pick it up. As much as they liked Burkhart, they liked the horse race even more. This was the kind of story they could lead with, even though public polls generally aren’t as reliable as our own internals.
The other story that interested me was about a Montana man who’d announced for governor saying that there were some who thought that this country would be better off if we tried the president for treason. It was too easy to claim, as too many Beltway media stars insisted, that what we were experiencing was just a silly season of nut jobs. But as I’d seen this afternoon, handguns and assault weapons made this season anything but silly. Insurrection was in the air. People came close to saying that the president should be murdered. And by now there was enough such talk that the mainstream media took it all in their stride.
‘You look angry.’
I raised my head to stare into the ice-blue eyes of Kathy Tomlin, Jeff Ward’s media buyer.
‘Not any more so than usual.’ She was nice enough to match my smile.
‘Mind if I sit down?’
‘Not at all.’
I’ve learned that when a pretty girl, and by God she was, offers to sit with you, the idea of turning her away rarely crosses your mind. She was a bit tousled and worn from the day but that only meant she worked hard and took things seriously.
‘I’m almost afraid to ask you what you thought of our staff. We’re all a little wasted.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
‘That bad?’
‘Are you kidding? I once spent three days with a staff that had fist fights right in the office. The campaign manager got his nose smashed in the last day I was there. And three of the women were planning on filing sexual harassment suits.’
‘Wow. Could you give me their address? That sounds like fun.’ Very white teeth. You could fall in love with those teeth.
‘They’ve disbanded. The campaign manager went to the slammer for embezzling, one of the single girls got pregnant, two of the married women got divorced and one of the tough guys got punched out by a guy half his size.’
‘They were all on our side, of course.’
‘Of course.’
This time the smile was wan. ‘I used to be so idealistic.’
