He examined the thirteen Longacres and found between them only five different exchanges. He wrote them down and cross-referenced to the eighty-seven listed addresses and numbers and came up with eleven matches. He compared each of the thirteen numbers with each of the eleven matches.
There was only one match.
“C. Longacre, 401-555-0954” and “Downy Marsh, St. Michaels, Md., 401-555-0954.”
Russ took a deep breath.
He looked about. Nobody was noticing him.
There was a phone. He picked it up, dialed 9 to get an outside line, then dialed the digits.
The phone was answered.
“Downy Marsh.”
“Yes, this is Robert Jones, I’m an attorney in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I’m trying to reach a Miss Connie Longacre.”
“Mrs. Longacre is sleeping.”
“Well, please don’t disturb her. She’s been named in a will out here, or rather
“That’s confidential information, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I think she’d be upset if she didn’t attend the reading. The sum of money involved is considerable.”
“Mrs. Longacre is not a needy woman, Mr. Jones.”
“I see. Well, with the money, there’s news. News of the people she knew and loved for twenty-five years, and that she left cold for reasons that nobody has ever understood out here.”
There was a long pause on the phone.
“She never talks about Arkansas. I only know she was there because her photo album is full of pictures of the country, and once I asked her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘another lifetime. Far, far away. Arkansas, believe it or not.’ And then I knew it upset her because that night she was crying.”
“Thank you very much for the information.”
“You won’t hurt her?”
“No, ma’am. Not at all.”
“She’s been through so much. She’s ninety-five now, and very frail.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And, of course, she’s blind. Has been for ten years.”
Giddy with joy at his triumph, Russ downloaded the machine and returned the disc to the librarian, and with a light step, hurried out the door. He ran smack into his new friend Bruce Sims, who looked at him in surprise.
Russ felt stupidity drain into his face but then said, in a frenzy of fake desperation, “Bathroom?”
“Not in the
“Thanks. The test is on the table. I’m all done. Sorry, but when you gotta go—”
And he took off running down the hall.
“—you gotta go,” called out Bruce, laughing.
Russ went and hid in a stall for ten minutes, then made a big deal out of washing his hands. He emerged to find Bruce waiting.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have left the room. But I never went back—”
“That’s okay, don’t worry about it. I picked up the test.”
“So when do you think I’ll hear?”
“Well, can you give us a week or so? We’ll look it over and see how it fits into our needs. Do you have a phone?”
“No, I’m sort of mobile now. Let me call you. A week?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
They stopped to pick up Russ’s coat and then were sauntering through the newsroom when Russ noted that nearly everyone had left their desks and gathered around a television set suspended from the ceiling near the wire room.
“Oh, God,” said Bruce.
“Willie just called. I think this is it, Bruce,” said someone rushing by. “If it is, meeting at three instead of four.”
“What’s going on?” Russ said.
“Come on, watch this, you’ll find it amusing.”
Russ followed Sims over to the mob of reporters and editors, mesmerized by an empty podium, a microphone and the dreary look of a banquet hall in a chain motel near the interstate. A label on the screen identified the setting: Etheridge Campaign Headquarters, Los Angeles, California.
“Go, C-Span!” somebody cheered.
Soon enough, surrounded by aides and accompanied by a handsome but remote woman, a thin man with silver hair and a professionally distinguished face approached the podium. He looked about sixty-five and wore one of those almost uniform-perfect blue suits, a red tie and a white shirt. There wasn’t anything out of place; there wasn’t anything interesting either.
The party reached the podium. There was shuffling, chatter, awkwardness.
“Two years and
“What a hopeless wanker,” someone with a British accent editorialized.
“Who the hell is it?” Russ whispered to Sims, even as the man’s features were beginning to vibrate with recognizability, like a character actor who always plays the best friend.
“Holly Etheridge,” Sims responded. “You know, former Senator Hollis Etheridge. He chose not to seek reelection two years ago and has spent the past twenty-four months running the most inept presidential campaign since Ed Muskie.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” said Russ. “He’s the one who built the road for his dad?”
“The Etheridge Porkway. Who says there’s no free lunch in America? If you knew Harry and then Holly, you got very rich.”
“My friends,” said Hollis Etheridge, reading stiffly from a prepared statement, “and members of the press who have chosen to honor me with your attention. For years and years, my father had a dream. He dreamed that his only son would become President of the United States. It wasn’t too much to ask for. After all, he had come out of the backwoods of Arkansas and become United States representative for thirty years. As far as he saw it, in this great land of ours, anything was possible and no dream was too large.”
Russ thought he’d seen the guy on talk shows over the years. He was always a fill-in, a somewhat orthodox man in whose mouth English seemed a foreign language.
“One thing about old Holly,” whispered Bruce salaciously, “he got more pussy than a toilet seat.”
“I shared that dream,” Hollis droned onward. “I worked ceaselessly to make it a reality. I gave up my position in the august body known as the United States Senate to make it come true. I raised money and went to banquets and gave speeches.
“But as my fourth-place finish in last week’s California primary has made clear, that dream will not come true.”
There were some audible groans from the audience, whom Russ gathered were campaign workers and true believers. Though what in Holly Etheridge was there to believe in truly, other than the practical craft of the professional politician?
“That, coupled with a third in New York, a third in Massachusetts and a fourth in New Hampshire, has made it clear that the party will seek another for standard-bearer and that my continued presence distracts from the message of the two from between whom you will choose the candidate.”
He paused amid the groans.
“There goes
