He praised Jeremy for everything he had done and several things he hadn’t done, and then, finally, he started winding up to his peroration like a pitcher warming up at the plate, and at long last let his ball go in a stentorian voice:
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you His Excellency the Governor of this state, Jeremy Playfair.”
Wild clapping, hooraying, and stamping from an audience which must have found any excuse for exercise a relief after sitting still for so long.
Jeremy rose, smiling, looking slender and boyish beside the burly rancher, standing with an ease and grace peculiarly his own.
His light baritone voice was relaxed and informal, perfectly at home. It was not “raised”’ or “projected” yet it carried to every corner of the room.
“What can I say after an introduction like that?”
The smile and the two-edged meaning of the words won his audience immediately. As he saw he had their sympathy, he went on swiftly and happily with a glancing reference now and then to the planks in his official platform. He was halfway through that list, when he was interrupted.
“What about the two guys killed during the dock strike? Why didn’t you settle it before anyone was killed?”
There are only two ways of dealing with a heckler: You can ignore him and sweep on with your speech, hoping to carry the audience with you; or you can put him down with a stroke of wit so stunning that it stops his mouth long enough to give the audience a chance to laugh and forget him.
Answering a heckler at length is as hopeless as a motorist arguing with a traffic cop or an author answering a book reviewer. In all combat the advantage is with the one who has the power to attack.
Jeremy was known for his skill as a debater. Time and again in his political campaigns, he had been inspired with a quip so light and yet so lethal that it had disarmed a heckler, but tonight inspiration failed him. Was he just tired? Did he blame himself for the deaths of the two men who might have lived if he had been able to settle the strike sooner? Was he still suffering more than he himself had realized from the shock of the fire and the enigma of Vivian’s death?
Whatever the reason, he chose to go on with his speech as if there had been no interruption.
Sometimes it works. This time it didn’t.
“We have the satisfaction now of improved relations with Barlovento—”
“Commies, ain’t they? Friends of yours?”
The same voice from the same part of the hall.
Heads turned in that direction.
Where Jeremy stood, he could not see the man, but he knew he had to answer now. A second interruption cannot be ignored.
“Would anyone here have preferred a war in the Caribbean? That was the alternative to the decision we made.”
“Sez you! You’re pro-Barlo. You’ve even got one of them working for you now.”
“Mr. de Miranda is an American citizen.”
“Any spy can take out papers!”
Jeremy stepped to the front of the dais. “Why don’t you come down here in front where everyone can see you as well as hear you?”
The reply was inaudible.
Why didn’t Jeremy take advantage of that to go on with his speech? Apparently, he felt that the heckler’s insinuations were too serious to slide away from, for he said:
“I can’t hear you.”
The answer was clear enough: “Then I’ll come closer.”
Now every pair of eyes in the room, including Jeremy’s were fixed on the little ripple in the crowd where someone unseen was trying to push his way through from the back.
Tash, sitting on one side of the dais near the edge, had a clearer view of Jeremy and those in the front rows near him than anyone else. She caught her breath.
Hilary, beside her, said, “What’s wrong?”
Tash could only stare at the place where she had seen a figure pass under the light from one of the bulbs near the front and melt into the shadow beyond. The blindlooking eyes and elfin smile were unmistakable. Why was Freaky here, so far from his urban habitat?
Others had marked his progress through the crowd. Now, as he stepped beyond the first row and stood alone and conspicuous looking up at the dais, every eye was on him, watching to see what he would do next.
The explosion was so unexpected in that context that no one identified it immediately.
Hilary said, “That sounded like a shot, but it can’t be.”
Job’s face was a mask of shock and terror: staring eyes, slack jaw, bloodless cheeks.
Tash looked at Jeremy. He was still standing, but Carlos was holding him up, and his head had fallen forward.
She had only the dimmest awareness of other people shouting and pushing as she forced her way to his side.
His eyes were closed. There was only a little blood on his face. It was Carlos, unharmed and fully aware of what had happened, who looked like death.
She took one of Jeremy’s hands. It lay in hers, inert and unfeeling.
“We must get an ambulance!” shouted Wilkes.
“There isn’t time,” said Carlos.
“Then we must get him to a car, any car. Pulaski, clear a path to the door.”
“But the man who fired the shot . . . ?”
“Leave him to the others.”
Tash followed. No one tried to stop her. She got into the back seat beside Jeremy and took his head in her lap. Carlos was driving. He was the only one who had been here before and knew the road. Wilkes and Pulaski crowded into the front seat beside him.
Tash used a handkerchief to wipe away the blood on Jeremy’s face. She remembered that people in shock must be kept warm. Someone had left an overcoat on the floor of the
