1982, and they had clicked from the start. After Dita’s murder, Ray had held Paul’s job offer open while Paul worked with Sandy Stern on his brother’s defense, and that didn’t change even after Cass pled. Ray said he’d always taught his deputies to ask of any decision, ‘Would you think you were being fair, if the defendant was your brother?’ He doubted Paul would ever need that reminder.
In 1986, Ray lost the primary to his former deputy, Nico Della Guardia, and Paul left soon after to become a plaintiff’s lawyer. Even out of office, however, Ray continued to be a leading figure in the Democratic Farmers amp; Union Party. Horgan had helped guide Paul when he decided to turn to politics a decade ago, after two huge tort judgments, especially the tobacco litigation, basically made work a pastime for him. It was Ray who’d first introduced Paul to local labor leaders, and Ray who, four years ago, twisted the last two arms to secure the votes Paul needed as a reform candidate to become majority leader in the senate. Now Ray was general counsel to Paul’s mayoral campaign.
“Not mere falsity. But reckless disregard for the truth,” said Ray, reciting the standard of proof a public figure like Paul had to offer to win a suit for defamation. In his mid-seventies, Horgan was so red-faced beneath the frost of white hair that you couldn’t quite suppress the thought of a peppermint stick. He was hobbled after two knee replacements, and no longer even pretended that he could recall names. Some dismissed Horgan as a barnaclized pol. But he’d retained his canniness and an air of pure delight in the sly mechanics of power.
“And can we prove that?” Paul asked him.
“Should be a slam dunk,” said Ray. “What evidence do they have that you had any role in that murder?”
On the other side of the sleek conference table, Mark Crully, Paul’s campaign manager, dropped his pencil.
“We have to sue,” Crully said. Mark was a quiet, driven little guy, general of the backroom army you would never see on TV. He’d run campaigns all over the country for a decade, most recently winning a special election for a congressional seat in California that had been Republican for fifty years. He was good. But about one thing: winning. And he was testy now. He had no patience for lawyers. Or anyone else for that matter. “We have to sue,” he repeated.
Paul decided to ignore Crully, who often seemed to have his own view of who worked for whom. Paul spoke to Horgan.
“But it’ll be our burden to show I had nothing to do with that murder, won’t it? It’s always a bitch proving a negative. And it’s not like we can do DNA on the blood at the scene. We’re identical twins.”
“True,” said Ray. “But we’ll get discovery. And the discovery will show Hal has nothing. Right?”
The three were sitting in the fishbowl conference room at the center of Paul’s campaign offices, glass walls on two sides. The design was Crully’s. He believed that a look of openness sent the right message, both to the campaign workers and to the press, on the limited occasions Crully admitted them. But Paul, who was accustomed to keeping his own secrets, couldn’t get used to it.
Looking through the glass to the tumbling office outside, you’d think this was a campaign with no troubles. There were probably one hundred people at work at 10 a.m., all but roughly twenty of them volunteers, hustling about with purpose. The space belonged to a guy Paul had known since law school, Max Florence, who’d donated two floors. They’d bought white modular panels with big windows, and had the entire office up and running the day Paul announced. It demonstrated formidability to his half-dozen opponents.
A full half of the office was given over to fund-raising. Most of the volunteers here were at the phone bank, dialing for dollars, from the lists Paul had developed in four different campaigns. Field, the second of the three major campaign operations, was situated right across from where they sat. Jean Orange was laughing about something with her two deputies; her metal walls were covered with maps of the county, green tags showing where they had opened local offices, red tags indicating the wards where the committeeperson or councilman had promised to help. Now that the holidays were over, she expected to have a thousand people hitting doors this weekend, identifying their voters. Communications, around the corner, was the place today where people were earning their keep. Tom Mileie, a thirty-two-year-old Internet expert, and his three staffers, not to mention both deputy campaign managers and the policy director, were all fielding calls from reporters who wanted to know what Paul had to say now that Hal Kronon had claimed again that Paul had helped murder Dita.
Crully interrupted once more.
“You have to sue this cracker. You gave him a day to calm down. We sent him a letter saying cut it out, and not only did he not cut it out, he repeated it to reporters this morning. So now we have to sue him.”
Paul had been in public life long enough that he didn’t get spooked by crises. They were, truth be told, part of the thrill. People were counting on you. Now figure it out. And he would. He always did.
“Hal’s emotional,” Paul said. “People understand he’s emotional. If I sue him, I’m giving him a platform to keep this in the news. Our last poll said we’re twenty up. With that kind of lead, you play house odds and don’t gamble.”
“This guy doesn’t need a platform,” Crully answered. “He’s got a billion dollars.” Crully wore a white shirt that seemed bright as a headlight, with the cuffs still linked, and a rep tie snug to the collar. Everybody else, except the Communications people who often had to put on a tie for the cameras, worked in jeans. But Crully preferred to demonstrate he was still a marine. He spoke in a low voice and tried to show no emotion as he rolled that fucking pencil in his fingers. In Paul’s experience, the Crullys of the world came with two speeds. When he went home to Pennsylvania he probably spent two days crying over his mother’s grave, and seething about what a drunken lout his dad had been, and hating his brothers. And then he returned to work with the bloodless air of a hit man. “And there’s another problem.” Mark pointed his pencil at Ray, as a cue.
“So I got a call,” said Ray. “Old pal. Another
“Saying what?”
“Probably saying you murdered his sister. And it’s not like you’re running unopposed. Murchison and Dixon will figure out how to use this. They all will.”
“Let’s see the ads,” said Paul.
Crully again dropped the pencil.
“Great,” he said. “How much time and money do you want to spend trying to un-ring that bell? You have no choice. This is an election. Elections are about myths, about making them think you’re a god, not a mortal. You know that as well as I do.”
“Can Hal just do that?” Paul asked. “Spend a zillion dollars on ads?”
“Probably,” said Raymond. “It’s not a coordinated expenditure. Not so far as we know. He’s an individual exercising his First Amendment rights. At least as long as there are five clowns on the Supreme Court who think that spending money is a form of unrestricted free speech.”
“Besides,” said Crully. “Suppose it is illegal. You want to go to court? Or the Election Commission? Then Hal won’t need to pay for ads. He’ll just hold news conferences every day about how you’re trying to muzzle him. Reporters don’t like muzzlers. They always figure they’re next. But that’s the point: You’re going to court. The only question is when. So do you go now, when an innocent person could be expected to express his outrage? Or in three weeks when you’re just whining about how much money Hal’s spending calling you names? This isn’t a close call,” said Crully. He lowered his chin so that Paul could see the flat look in his fair eyes.
Mario Cuomo said you campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but as far as Paul could tell they were both trips to the abattoir, just different entrances. Governing and running were both brutal, with plenty of bloodshed, veins you opened yourself and spears in the sides from your opponents. Politics was always going to be the war of all against all-which included the people who were supposed to be with you. Crully, for example, wanted Paul to win. But only so Mark could run even bigger campaigns. He didn’t really care about Paul’s family or the complex accommodations they had made for decades to live with the terrible fact of Dita’s murder. The truth was Crully had taken this job so he could sit out the catfight between Obama and Hillary. By May, when the runoff election for mayor was scheduled to take place, there’d be a clear winner in the presidential contest and Mark could jump onto that campaign, probably to run a swing state.
“Fine, Mark,” said Paul. “I hear you, but Hal’s going to use this to drag every stray dog and cat into the courtroom. I mean, am I going to be giving depositions two weeks before the election?”
“You’re not giving shit,” Crully said. “You sue Kronon, and then the lawyers delay everything. He’ll file a motion to dismiss because you’re violating his right to free speech and we take weeks to answer and then there’s
