Andrew Esty was insisting to someone who could have been a math teacher that
Mary Rice told Fletch that Michael J. Hanrahan was asleep on the press bus.
A photographer terrified little girls by bringing his camera close to their faces and setting off flash bulbs rapidly. “Look at that skin! Awesome! What kind of cremes do you use, honey?”
Outside the school’s main office, some of the reporters bent over the low wall phones, jabbering rapidly in low voices. Other reporters waited.
What’s the story? Fletch wondered. Today presidential candidate Caxton Wheeler urged children to continue growing up?
Outside it had stopped snowing. But the sky was still gray and heavy.
“That was nice,” Fletch said to Walsh on the driveway in front of the school.
“Yeah. Dad used to play those tricks on me. It was how he gave me my allowance every week.”
“Does he still?”
Walsh grinned. “I still think money should come out of my own nose.” As his father approached, he said, “Yeah, that made pictures….”
Two of the television station wagons already were leaving the school’s parking lot. The rear end of one wagon slid sideways entering the road.
In the driveway, the governor was waving good-bye to the children through the school windows. “I’ve got an idea for the Winslow speech, Walsh,” he said. “Let me work on it.”
“The congressman is supposed to be here.” Walsh turned around to face the compaign bus. Then he said, “My God.”
At the steps of the campaign bus, between the two women volunteers who were to be the reception committee for the congressman, stood a petite, grandmotherly woman.
The governor turned around.
On the steps of the bus, volunteer coordinator Lee Allen Parke raised his hands in futility.
“The congressman,” observed the governor, “appears to be a congressperson. You gave me the name Congressman Jack Snive.”
“That isn’t Jack Snive,” admitted Walsh. “Somebody goofed.”
“What is her name?” the governor asked.
“No idea. What district are we in?” Walsh’s eyes scanned the face of the school building. “Are we at the right school?”
“Oh, yes,” the governor said. “They couldn’t have played ‘America’ that badly without practicing it.” He sighed. “Guess I’ll have to call her ‘Member.’ Strikes me as slightly indecent, but that’s politics.”
Putting his hand out to the congressperson, the candidate trudged through the slush. “Hi ya,” he said happily. “I was looking for you. How are you feeling? Great job you’re doing for your district.”
He helped her aboard the bus. Smiling at his son, he said to her, “I want to hear what your plans are for the next four years.”
12
“Oooooo,” said Betsy Ginsberg when Fletch stopped at her aisle seat on the bus. “Is it now I get your attention?”
The bus went over a speed bump in the school driveway. Fletch grabbed on to the backs of the seats on either side of the aisle.
“Just wanted to ask you if you want a typewritten copy of the candidate’s profound remarks at Conroy Regional School.”
“Sure.” She smiled puckishly. “You got ’em?”
“No.”
“Pity. Deathless remarks gone with the wind.”
“What kind of a story did some of you find to phone in? I saw you at the phone.”
“You don’t know?”
“No idea.”
“Some press rep. you are. You ever been on a campaign before?”
“No.”
“You’re cute, Fletcher. But I don’t think you should be on this one, either.”
“What happened?”
“Tell me, what happened between you and Freddie in Virginia.”
“Nothing. That’s the trouble.”
“Something must have happened. She’s mentioned it.”
“Just a case of mistaken identity. At the American Journalism Alliance Convention a year or two ago.”
“That the one where Walter March got killed?”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened, besides the old bastard’s getting killed?”
“I told you. Mistaken identity. Freddie thought she was Fredericka Arbuthnot, and I didn’t.”
“But She is Fredericka Arbuthnot.”
“So I was mistaken.”
Andrew Esty rose from his seat at the back of the bus and came forward in a procession of one. He stood next to Fletch. “Mr. Fletcher, that stop at the school raises several issues I’d like to talk to the candidate about.”
“Nice stuff you’re writing these days, Mr. Esty,” Fletch said. “Circulation of the
“Thank you,” Andrew Esty said sincerely. “About praying in the public schools.”
“I used to pray in school,” Roy Filby said from the seat behind Betsy. “Before every exam. Swear like hell afterward.”
“What about it?” Fletch asked Esty.
“Is the candidate against children being allowed to pray in school?”
“The candidate isn’t against anyone praying anytime anywhere.”
“You know what I mean: the teacher setting the example.”
“My teacher was a Satanist,” Filby said. “She corrected our papers with blood.”
Esty glared at him. “The issue of people praying together on federal property—”
“The governor has a position paper on this issue.” Standing on the bus swaying down the highway, Fletch’s legs and back muscles were beginning to remind him he hadn’t really slept in thirty hours.
“I’d like to point out to you, and to the candidate,” Esty said unctuously, “that prayer is led in federal prisons.”
“Jesus!” exclaimed Filby. “Esty’s got a whole new issue. Go for it, Esty! Go, man, go!”
“Officially sanctioned prayer,” Esty said precisely.
“Right,” said Betsy. “What have prisoners got to pray for?”
“Obviously,” Esty continued, “that’s a similar so-called violation of the principle of the separation of Church and State.”
“Right on,” said Betsy. “The last person seen by the condemned man was the Sanitation Department’s Joe Schmo. Looking at the sanitation worker’s green uniform, the condemned man’s final words were, ‘Please wrap my mortal remains in the
“It’s a matter of public prayer on government property,” Esty said. “Either you can or you can’t.”
“Would you like an exclusive interview with the candidate?” Fletch asked.
“Yes. There are one or two things of this nature I’d like to ask him about.”
“Me too,” chirped Filby. “I want to ask him if he’ll permit Shubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ to be sung at the White House!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Fletch said to Esty.
Down a few seats, seated at a window, Solov stared bug-eyed, blankly. Behind him, Fenella Baker was
