I thought about telling Pamela she worked for me and not Fred, but she was just trying to be helpful.
“Okay. I’ll call you after I see Fred tomorrow. Thanks, Pamela.”
“Glad to help, dear.”
5
Riding an elevator thirty floors normally takes a while, but on Monday morning it took forever. At the seventh floor I’d chosen the path of self-preservation and a clockwork fifty thousand a month-that had always been the plan. At the tenth, I decided on an even million a year. It was my own decision, so why not be generous? At the fourteenth, I was wavering. Where was the line? If I could accept a million a year, then I could accept two million. I could accept it all.
Where was the line? It was somewhere around the twenty-third floor, and I crossed it. It really wasn’t a decision. I was only deciding to not decide yet.
Fred saw through me when I dropped, defeated, into the grand armchair throne and put my elbows on his desk and my head in my hands.
I stared down at the floor so I wouldn’t have to see him smirk, and when I finally looked up, he was trying real hard not to.
“Okay,” I said. “Start with Clinton Grainger.”
“Yes, a very good place to start.”
Wasn’t that where Julie Andrews started singing in The Sound of Music? I was having severe concentration problems.
“Governor Bright will be your biggest challenge, and you need to deal with him decisively at the very beginning. He might be too ambitious to be controlled. He is a reckless man.”
“From what I’ve seen on television, the governor doesn’t come across as very bright.”
“Grainger is the brains. The problems come when he can’t control his boss.”
The irony of this statement, spoken to me by Fred Spellman, was not lost on either of us.
“Did you ever have that problem?” I said.
He laughed. “I never controlled your father; he was no one’s fool. I doubt you are, either.”
“I feel like a fool right now.” I did, too. Fred’s office was power, real power. The furniture was a bit worn-not from age or even use, but from weight. Heavy decisions were made there. Important words were spoken. It was serious, the real thing. I was just a little bubble waiting to be popped. “What do I say to Clinton Grainger? I guess I should meet him tonight.”
“Yes, certainly. He will be making his own judgment, whether he thinks you or the governor will likely be stronger.”
“I could just tell him. It’ll be obvious anyway.”
“You may change your mind as the days go by. For now, be direct. Tell him you expect the same working relationship with the governor that your father had.”
“Which was?” I hadn’t played poker since college, and bluffing wasn’t my strong suit.
“You supply him with ample contributions, positive press coverage and union organization during elections, and he keeps the legislature friendly to your business interests and ensures that you receive the major share of state contracts. He also keeps law enforcement agencies from causing you inconvenience.”
So simple, so obvious. What had the citizens done to deserve such a well-run state? And I certainly didn’t want inconvenience.
“Why might the law enforcement agencies be inconvenient?”
Fred sighed, which he could do very deeply. “Your father’s business dealings with the state did not operate within a normal legal framework.”
“So he just built his own.”
“Yes, and therefore any involvement by the state police would be inappropriate.”
What a pile of words. “I’ve inherited this framework?”
“You should be thankful that it is already in place.”
It was all in place, everything. I just needed to take my place inside it. No-I should stand up right now and spit in his eye and tell him I will not defile myself in this swamp. This is what I hated so much about being Melvin, this slimy stew of corruption and power. I will put an end to it!
“Okay, that’s about what I thought,” I said.
“Grainger knows the details intimately. You don’t need to at the beginning, just understand the working relationship.”
I’ll find the details later. I can clean it up then.
“I should avoid saying anything blatantly illegal?” I said.
“Um, yes. He could be recording the meeting.”
“Right.” I don’t want to play this game. Decide. Quit now. “Where should we meet?”
“You select a restaurant, near the capitol.”
Here was another problem: lunch with the accountant, dinner with the chief of staff, and Pamela would have donuts at the board meeting. “I’m going to get fat.”
“Then have fun doing it,” said the three-hundred-pound mound in front of me, and he could just as well have been talking about all the other corruptions he was inducting me into. “Life is short, Jason.”
Life is short. “Who was king before Melvin?” I said.
“King? No one. There were dukes and earls, or whatever. Your grandfather was a minor baron. No, your father created the position of sole ruler.”
“But you say there has to be a king.”
“You can’t go back. The world had changed; your father changed it.”
The metaphor seemed backward. “Once the people have had a king, they’ll always want one?”
“The people have nothing to do with it.” He was amused at the thought, or at my innocence, and it was fascinating to listen to him. I was a rat being hypnotized by a snake. “They are only necessary as an object for power to be wielded over.”
What would a government do without a population to be governed? I repeated the question. “So who needs there to be a king?”
“The men who are strong enough to grasp power. Before your father consolidated his position, no one had been able to accomplish it. Now they know it can be done, and how. There are a million people in this state, and if just one of them, only one, has a desire for power, he will rule the rest. There are many more than one who have the desire.”
“I still don’t think I do, Fred.”
“Then you may be the better man to wield power.”
He didn’t believe that. He knew what it took to wield power. It took determination and purpose, and purpose was what I lacked.
What am I doing here?
I was hoping for a return to sanity as I descended back through the twenty-third floor, but it didn’t come. The line was gone. I looked for it in the lobby, but there was still no sign of it.
I walked the few blocks to the steak place George Elias had suggested, and cleared my head with the exercise. Maybe this would be more fun.
George wasn’t an accountant. He was a major-league investment manager and banker, and it had been his job to shovel Melvin’s cash between vaults whenever one got too full. If the restaurant was expensive, that would mean he managed other people’s investments because he liked being around money. If the place was cheap, that meant he managed other people’s money because they wanted him to.
It was respectable and an excellent value. I decided to give George a raise.
I was ten minutes early, and my guess was he would be five minutes early. When he came in at that, on the dot, I was ready to give him another raise. He was thin, or else everybody seemed to me to be thin after two hours with Fred, and he was friendly but very professional.
