“Around the right, five miles.”
“Five freakin’ miles! That’s a long way to walk in this heat!”
“Won’t have to. Tampa is the strip-club capital of America. You’re never more than spitting distance.”
“What’s that got to do with walking?”
“Every time we land a national convention or Super Bowl, TV pundits mock us for our titty bars, but you never have to worry about where to find a cab in this city.” Serge gestured at a nearby building with a giant silver disk on the roof, where people paid extra for lap dances inside a flying saucer. “There’s the closest taxi stand.”
Coleman stared at a fleet of yellow cars on the other side of the road. “But why couldn’t we have just gotten a cab in the first place?”
“Because we’re about to take a great vacation to Miami for the fabulous Summit of the Americas.” There was a break in traffic, and Serge trotted halfway across the highway to the concrete median. “Except everyone else just goes to the airport. I like to take the path less traveled.”
An ambulance raced toward shrill screams from an overflow parking lot, and Serge and Coleman dashed across the street to a flying saucer.
Washington, D.C.
Office of Homeland Security.
Glass doors, card readers, metal detectors. Bright walls and shiny floors. The lobby displayed the department’s official seal of a bald eagle in a fiercely protective pose, giving citizens increased peace of mind on the approximate level of a smoke detector.
Malcolm Glide navigated a maze of hallways toward the center of the building, passing cordially through ascending security-level checkpoints. Even though he had no official identification.
Because Malcolm had no official title in Washington. And total access.
Because he was a puppet master. And no one was better.
In the last midterms alone, Malcolm was the brains behind the election of six senators and fifteen congressmen, despite voter registration heavily favoring their opponents. Malcolm was the ultimate political partisan. To money. Eleven of his candidates were Republican, ten Democrat.
Footsteps echoed through waxed halls. Glide dressed like his clients: tailored black suit, red or blue tie, banker’s haircut, and teeth-whitening treatments requiring ultraviolet beams and eye protection. At six one, his dark-haired pretty-boy looks had gotten him the pick at any sorority. In three decades since, they’d matured to nonthreatening leading-man standards, like Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. He could have done TV commercials, but he did this.
Malcolm took another left down another hall. He had actually done one TV ad for aftershave.
Glide made a final turn in the last hall and entered the department’s inner sanctum. He cheerfully waved at a personal secretary and strolled into the director’s office without knocking. The aftershave was Hai Karate.
The director was on the phone. “I gotta go.” He hung up and smiled. “Malcolm!”-practically running around his desk to shake hands.
“Mr. Tide!”
“How many times have I told you to call me Rip.”
Rip detested Malcolm, but Glide held the strings to key votes that controlled his budget, so he loved him.
“Rip,” said Glide. “Hate to ask since you’re so busy guarding the safety of every man, woman, and child in America, but I need a big favor.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to raise the threat level.”
“What? Did you hear some overseas chatter? Is it the ports? Airlines?”
“No. Three of my candidates just dipped below forty in the polls. They’ve unfairly been linked to the latest oil spill in the Gulf.”
“Are they linked?”
“Yes. I need something to take over the news cycle.”
“No problem.” Rip reached behind his desk for the big vinyl threat thermometer. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“We’re already at the highest threat level.” Rip pointed at the top of the thermometer. “Remember? You asked me to raise it last week when one of your candidates apologized to the oil company because they were the real victim.”
“So make up a new color.”
“I can’t. The colors are set.”
“You’re the director of Homeland Security. You can do anything you want.”
“Malcolm, don’t get me wrong,” said Rip. “I’d do anything for you. But my hands are tied. Red’s the top color. There’s nothing scarier.”
Malcolm opened his briefcase. “What about a darker red? I brought some color swatches.”
“You might have something there.” Rip grabbed a sample and held it up for comparison. “This one seems more upsetting.”
“Then it’s done.”
“I still don’t know,” said the director. “Two reds. They’re pretty close in shade. Won’t people get confused?”
Glide snapped his briefcase shut. “Confusion’s scarier.”
“You’re the expert.”
Indeed, Glide was.
His motto: All politics is marketing. And in marketing, there are but two variables: product and salesmanship. Malcolm had the best of both worlds.
He’d cornered the market on fear.
And when it came to sales, Glide could package utter terror like a tit to a baby. During campaigns, it was his hottest seller.
It hadn’t always been that way.
Just a few short years earlier, the firm Glide founded, Nuance Management Group, was renowned throughout the nation’s capital for thorough policy research, unflagging accuracy, strident ethics-and losing a record volume of elections.
It changed overnight.
It was a Tuesday.
Four A.M.
Malcolm Glide sprang up from his pillow in a cold sweat. Heart pounding like a conga drum. Another nightmare about zombies. Except now they’d learned to walk faster.
Malcolm grabbed his chest. “Holy Mother! I’d vote for anybody who could stop that!”
The next morning, Malcolm charged confidently into the boardroom. “Throw away everything.” He walked to an easel and ripped down a chart of international exchange rates. “It’s all fresh.”
Murmurs around the conference table.
“We’ve been going at this completely wrong.” Glide crumpled the chart into a ball and threw it at a secretary’s head. “You know how we excruciatingly track swing voters, the base, independents?”
Various levels of nodding.
“Fuck that margin of error!” Glide grabbed a marker and scribbled rapidly on the washable easel. “Behold, our new business model.”
They stared in blank thought: IT’S THE STUPID VOTE, STUPID!
Furtive glances across the room.
An intern dared raise his hand. Veterans gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Malcolm pounded his fist on the table. “Everyone tries to get elected by leading. Instead we follow.”
“Follow what?”
“The emotions of the people.” Malcolm stood and began pacing. “They’re a massive disenfranchised class out there who feel abandoned.”
“That’s awful!”
