“Yeah.”
“Sure. Haven’t anything better to do.”
“Don’t see how he gets away with this. I don’t see how he gets away without making any kind of an explanation to Doris and Walsh.”
“Why? The guy’s a success in every other way. Jeez, he’s a presidential candidate. What more do you want? They put up with it. They mention it to me every once in a while. You know, thank me for takin’ care of him when he disappears. They’re fishin’, too. I never say nothin’. God knows what they think. Sure it worries them, but so what? The guy lives in a glass suit. He has a right to some privacy.”
“He doesn’t really trust them, does he?”
“He has a right to some privacy.”
“Flash, if the governor were off boozin’ with broads, would you put up with it?”
“I dunno. Sure. I expect so. I like broads better’n I like chipmunks.”
“Would you tell the truth about it?”
Flash’s eyes narrowed. “I’d shut up about it, if that’s what you mean. The way I figure, everybody’s gotta blow off steam in his own way. Everybody’s gotta have a piece of hisself to hisself. Me, I go to my room over the garage at the mansion and I can do what I want. I never bring girls there, though. Not to the governor’s mansion. I can do what I want. The governor, he wears a glass suit all the time. Except when he’s at the lake. Just me and him. Then he zonks out. That’s his thing.”
“And, Flash, drugs have nothing to do with it?”
“Nothin’. Absolutely nothin’. He doesn’t even drink coffee there. If that shithead Dr. Thom and his little black bag ever showed up at the cabin, I’d drown ’em faster than he can insult me.”
“That’s pretty fast.”
“Dr. Thom is an insult to the human race.”
“Has the governor done this lately? Disappeared?”
“No.” Flash frowned. “Not since the campaign started. But we went up to the lake the day after Christmas. When no one was lookin’. A long rest. Back by New Year’s Eve.”
“Okay. Flash, the question is obvious.”
The look on Flash’s face indicated the question wasn’t obvious.
“Why are you telling me this?” Fletch asked.
Simply, Flash answered, “The governor told me to.”
“I guessed as much. The answer’s obvious too. But why? Why did he tell you to tell me?”
Flash shrugged. “Dunno. I have a guess.”
“What’s your guess?”
“Maybe because he knows you don’t like Dr. Thom and his little black bag any better’n I do. I heard Walsh tell him that.”
Fletch shook his head. “So now I know something Walsh doesn’t know? I don’t get it.”
“You see, Mr. Fletcher, the people around the governor don’t care much about him, as long as he keeps movin’, keeps walkin’ and talkin’, keeps bein’ Caxton Wheeler, keeps winning. Including his wife and son. They remind me of a football team or somethin’. They work together beautifully, always slappin’ each other on the ass and everything. But one of them breaks his back, like James, or like that guy who got killed today—what’s his name? Victor Somethin’—no longer useful anymore, and they find they can play without him. They never really think of him again. There’s that goal up the field there, and the point is to get that ball through that goal. That’s the only point there is. The governor’s the ball. They’ll kick the shit out of him, throw him to the ground, land on him. He’s just got to keep lookin’ like a ball.” Flash waggled his head. “You’ve been with the campaign what? Like twenty-four hours? And the governor wanted you to know this about him. I don’t know what those friggin’ pills are Dr. Thom feeds him. The governor wants you to know he’s all right.”
“I’m not sure you’re right about Walsh.”
“He cares?” Flash sat back. “Yeah, he cares. Too much. To him his dad is Mr. Magical Marvelous.” Flash laughed. “I think the governor maybe almost wants his son to think he’s up there somewhere burnin’ up more energy with booze and broads. I think it would kill him if Walsh ever discovered the ol’ man’s just up at a rickety old cabin takin’ a nap. You know what I mean?”
“Hell of a lot of pressure,” Fletch said.
“Yeah, and this is the old man’s way of beatin’ it off. He’s right. It’s against his image. What could be worse for him than to have the
“Well, well,” Fletch said. “My daddy always said you can learn a lot in a bar, if you listen.”
Walsh stuck his head in the bar, looked around, but did not come in.
Fletch said, “The governor wanted me to know he’s not hooked on anything but sleep. Is that it?”
Flash shrugged. “The governor’s a very intelligent man. I don’t have any brains. Never did have. I’m just smart enough to know I should do what he tells me and everything will be fine.”
“What did he tell you to say to me about Mrs. Wheeler?”
“Nothin’.”
Fletch waited. He sipped his beer. He waited again. “What are you going to tell me about Mrs. Wheeler?”
“Nothin’. She’s one tough, smart person. As strong as steel.”
“Smarter and tougher than the governor?”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight, when she yelled at the governor—”
“I didn’t hear it. I was in the bathroom.”
“You were in the bathroom on purpose. You knew she was going to do some such thing.”
Flash said, “Yes.”
“You call that smart and tough? You don’t call that being out of control?”
“Mrs. Wheeler’s kept things going all these years. She was probably right in everything she said tonight. I didn’t hear her.”
“You must have been trying pretty hard not to hear her.”
“That’s my business. She uses her tongue like a whip. She whips Walsh, yells at the governor, calls me a goon.”
“Not just her tongue, Flash. She uses her hands.”
“You know, you don’t get to be a presidential candidate just by standin’ out in the rain. Someone has to push you, and push you damned hard. You see, I know the governor’s secret: he’s a nice guy. If it weren’t for her, the governor would have gone to sleep years ago. Read novels. Play with little kids. You know what I mean?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Someone’s got to be President of the United States,” Flash said simply. “Why not a smart, honest, good man like Caxton Wheeler?”
20
“I completed, duplicated, and delivered tomorrow’s final schedules,” Fletch said. “I also issued the three special releases Nolting and Dobson have been working on. You saw them. On Central America, exploitation of Native American lands, on the Russian economic situation. I also made up some nice-guy stuff about your dad for the feature press—”
“Like what?” Walsh asked sharply.
They were in Walsh’s bedroom on the twelfth floor of the hotel, sitting at the table under the shaded light.
“I told them how your dad used to give you your allowance. Make the coin disappear between his hands and then pretend to find it in your ear or something. Okay?”
“Okay.” Walsh’s eyes were darting around the areas of the room outside the light.
“Idea being to take the stink out of that scene this morning at Conroy School,” Fletch said. “To imply he treats all kids as he would his own.”
