of roasting beef and nauseated me. For a moment I felt myself identifying with the dead animal-caught around by people who fed it only to smash its head in with a mallet. I didn’t think I could eat any of it. When the head barbecuer suddenly sang out that they were ready to start carving, I hunched my shoulders and left.
I circled the house to find the porch swing Rosalyn had mentioned. What Boots treated as the back of the house bad actually been designed as the main entrance when the place was built a hundred years ago or so. A set of shallow steps led to a colonnaded veranda and a pair of doors inlaid with opaque etched glass.
The porch faced a flower bed and a small ornamental pond. It was a peaceful spot; the band and the crowd sounds still reached me, but no one else had strayed this far from the action. I strolled over to the pond and peered into it. Clouds turned rosy by the setting sun made the surface of the water shimmer a silvery blue. A cluster of goldfish swam over to beg for bread.
I glared at them. “Everyone else in this country has a fin stuck out-why should you guys be any different? I just don’t have any slush left today.”
I felt someone come up behind me and turned as Michael put an arm around my shoulders. I removed it and backed away a few paces.
“Michael, what’s going on with you today? Are you peeved because I wanted to drive myself?… Is that why you pulled that number on me at the gate and again with your pals back there? You can’t muscle me aside and then come caress me back into good humor.”
“I’m sorry,” he said simply, “I didn’t mean it like that. Ron and Ernie introduced me to those two guys-Schmidt and Martinez. They’re breaking into construction, just getting a few good jobs, and their work sites are being vandalized. The boys thought they could use some free police advice. When you came up we were in the middle of it. I was afraid you were still mad at me and I didn’t know how to handle it and not let them think I wasn’t listening to them, either. So I blew it. Can you still talk to me?”
I hunched a shoulder impatiently. “The trouble is, Michael, you belong to a crowd where the girls sit on a blanket waiting for the boys to finish talking business and bring them drinks. I like LeAnn and Clara, but they’ll never be good friends of mine-it’s not the way I think or act or live or-or anything. I think that style-the segregated way you and Ernie and Ron work-it’s too much part of you. I don’t see how you and I ever can move along together.”
He was quiet for a few minutes while he thought it over. “Maybe you’re right,” he said reluctantly. “I mean, my mother kept house and hung out with her friends and my dad had his bowling club. I never saw them do anything together-even church, it was always her taking the kids to Mass while he slept it off on Sunday mornings. I guess it was a mistake trying to see you at a function like this.” The sun had set but I could see his smile flash briefly, worried, not cocky.
The surface of the pond turned black; behind us the house loomed as a ghostly galleon. It was Michael’s ability to think about himself that set him apart from his pals. There was a time when it might have seemed worth the effort to work things out with someone who was willing to stop and think about it. But I’m thirty-seven now and no longer seem able to put the energy into dubious undertakings.
Before I could make up my mind what I wanted to say, Roz whirled up. I hadn’t expected to see her-at a function like this she’d have so many demands on her time that a desire to meet with me could easily fade from her mind. Schmidt and Martinez were with her.
“Vic!” Her voice had faded to a hoarse whisper after a long day of talking, but it vibrated with her usual energy.
“Thank goodness you waited for me. Can we grab a few minutes on the porch?”
I grunted unenthusiastically.
Schmidt and Martinez were greeting Michael in low-voiced seriousness. I introduced him to Rosalyn. She shook his hand perfunctorily and hustled me across the yard.
The lawn was smoothly trimmed; even at the pace she set we kept our footing in the dark. The porch was outlined by light coming from the other side of the opaque doors. I could see the swing, and Rosalyn’s shape when she settled in it, but her face was in too much shadow for me to make out her expression.
I sat on the top of the shallow steps, my back against the pillar, and waited for her to speak. On the lawn behind us I could make out the shapes of Michael and the two contractors as dark splotches. From the other end of the house the band was revving up to a more feverish pitch; the increased volume and the noise of laughter drifted to us.
“If I win the election I’m finally going to be in a position to really help my people,” Rosalyn said at last.
“You’ve already done a great deal.”
“No soap tonight, Vic. I don’t have time or energy for pats on the back… I’m setting my sights high. Getting Boots to endorse me-it was difficult but necessary. You do understand that?”
I nodded, but she couldn’t see that, so I gave an affirmative grunt. Anyway, I did understand it.
“This election is just the first step. I’m aiming for Congress and I want to be in a position for a cabinet post if the Democrats win in eight or twelve years.”
I grunted again. The specific shape of her ambition was interesting, but I’d always known she had the ability and the drive to reach for the top. In eight or twelve years maybe the country would even be ready for a Hispanic woman vice president. She must have been born in Mexico, though-that was why she was thinking only of the cabinet.
“Your advice would always be valuable to me.”
I had to strain to hear her, her voice had gotten so hoarse. “Thanks for the testimonial, Roz.”
“Some people-my cousin-think you might do something to hurt me, but I told him you would never do such a thing.”
I couldn’t begin to fathom what she might be talking about and said as much. She didn’t answer right away, and when she finally did I got the impression she’d chosen her words with great care.
“Because I’m working with Boots. Anyone who knows you knows you’ve always opposed everything he stands for.”
“Not everything,” I said. “Just the stuff I know about. Anyway, your cousin doesn’t know me. We just met this afternoon.”
“He knows about you,” she persisted in her raw voice. “You’ve done a lot of significant work one way and another. People who are connected around town hear your name.”
“I don’t need soap any more than you do, Roz. I haven’t said or done anything to make anyone think I’d stand in your way. Hell! I even paid two-fifty to support your campaign. What does your cousin imagine I’m doing? It may be chicken feed to a contractor, but that’s a big outlay for me-I wouldn’t do it frivolously.”
She put her hand on mine. “I appreciate you coming out for me. I know it took a lot for you to do, both the money and the function.” She gave a throaty chuckle. “I’ve had to swallow a few things, too, to be here-the sidelong looks from the party regulars. I know what they’re thinking-Boots is getting a piece of Spanish ass and giving her a spot on the ticket as payment.”
“So what is Schmidt worried about? That I’m from the Legion of Decency and I’m going to cook up a sex scandal? I’m
Her callused fingers gripped mine. “No, no, Vic. Don’t take it that way. Luis is my little cousin, my little brother, almost, the way he worries about me. Some men he was talking to told him how negative you are to Boots and he got worried on my behalf. I told him I’d talk to you, that’s all,
I didn’t know if I was hearing the truth or not. Maybe she was sleeping with Boots for the good of the Hispanic community-there was very little Roz wouldn’t do to help her people. It would turn my stomach, but I didn’t really care. At any rate, prolonging the conversation wasn’t going to buy me a copy of her thoughts.
“I don’t like you tying your wagon to Boots’s star, but I can’t afford to be picky-I’m self-employed and it’s a pretty small operation. And there’s certainly something to be said for letting Boots do your dirty work. Pulling the plug on abortions at Cook County the way he did, he owes the women in this town something-why shouldn’t it be you.”
Roz gave a husky laugh. “I knew I could count on you, Vic.” She summoned enough of her voice to call her cousin. “Hey, Luis, come on, we gotta go get a drink and shake a few more hands.”
