because he was morally outraged. Brains, yes; courage, certainly; even wit and appeal—all of which we agreed had to be part of the ideal composite we sought. But I also saw a streak of my friend Samuel Winters, a man who could walk away from the system because he didn't have the fever in him to go after the prize.'
'Is that so bad, Jacob? Not with regard to me, I was never that important, really, but is it so healthy for all office-seekers to be on fire?'
'You don't turn over the store to part-time management, not if it's your major investment. The people rightly expect a full-time landlord and they sense it when the call isn't basically there, aggressively there. They want their money's worth.'
'Well,' said Winters, his tone mildly defensive. 'I believe the people were not totally unimpressed with me, and I wasn't burning up with fever. On the other hand, I didn't make too many gaffes.'
'Good Lord, you never had the chance to. Your campaign was a television Blitzkrieg with some of the best photography I've ever seen, your handsome countenance a decided asset, of course.'
'I had three or four debates, you know… Three actually—’
'With wart hogs, Samuel. They were buried by congenial class—the people love that. They never stop searching the heavens, now the television screens, for that king or that prince to come along and show them the way with comforting words.'
'It's a goddamned shame. Abraham Lincoln would have been considered an awkward hick and stayed in Illinois.'
'Or worse,' said Jacob Mandel, chuckling. 'Abraham the Jew in league with the anti-Christs, sacrificing gentile infants.'
'And when he grew the beard, absolute confirmation,' agreed Winters, smiling and getting out of his chair. 'A drink?' he asked, knowing his friend's answer and heading for the bar beneath a French tapestry on the right wall.
'Thank you. The usual, please.'
'Of course.' The historian poured two drinks in silence, one bourbon, one Canadian, both with ice only. He returned to their chairs and handed the bourbon to Mandel. 'All right, Jacob. I think I've put it all together.'
'I knew you could pour and think at the same time,' said Mandel, smiling and raising his glass. 'Your health, sir.'
'L'chaim,' replied the historian.
'So?'
'Somehow, some way this fever you speak of, this need to win the prize, must be instilled in Evan Kendrick. Without it he's not credible and without him Gideon's mongrels—the opportunists and the fanatics—move in.'
'I believe that, yes.'
Winters sipped his drink, his eyes straying to a Goblin tapestry. 'Philip and the knights at Crecy weren't defeated by the English bowmen and the Welsh long knives alone. They had to contend with what Saint-Simon described three hundred years later as a court bled by the “vile bourgeois corrupters”.'
'Your erudition is beyond me, Samuel.'
'How do we instil this fever in Evan Kendrick? It's so terribly important that we do. I see it so clearly now.'
'I think we start with Milos Varak.'
Annie Mulcahy O'Reilly was beside herself. The standard four telephone lines in the congressional office were usually used for outgoing calls; this particular congressman did not normally receive many incoming ones. Today, however, was not only different, it was crazy. In the space of twenty-four hours, the smallest, most underworked staff on the Hill became the most frenzied. Annie had to call her two filing clerks, who never came in on Monday ('Come on, Annie, it ruins a decent weekend'), to get their bouffant heads down to the office. She then contacted Phillip Tobias, the bright if frustrated chief aide, and told him to forget his tennis game and drag his promotional ass downtown or she'd kill him. ('What the hell happened?' 'You didn't see the Foxley show yesterday?' 'No, I was sailing. Why, should I have?' 'He was on it!' 'What? That can't happen without my approval! ' 'They must have called him at home.' 'The son of a bitch never told me!' 'He didn't tell me, either, but I saw his name in the Post's late listings.' 'Jesus! Get me a tape, Annie! Please!' 'Only if you come down and help us man the phones, dearie.' 'Shit!' 'I'm a lady, you prick. Don't talk to me that way.' 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Annie!
