wasn't surprised when the elevator stopped at the ninth floor-Frank had always said that was the highest story accessible by hook and ladder in case of emergency. They'd spent months trying to convince Caruthers to move seven stories down from his penthouse when he'd been elected vice president. They'd finally appealed to June, and she'd closed the deal in twenty-four hours.
Two more agents in the hall checked out my pass and Alan's face, then opened the double doors leading to the condo. The first thing that struck me was the space. I'd never been in a residence that large, particularly not one in the middle of a building. Several pods of chairs and tables and sofas, a bar, a dining area, wall-to-wall floor- to-ceiling glass-tinted and ballistic-three or four plasma TVs, a treadmill, and at least five doors leading back to hallways or other rooms. The place was alive with voices and movement. As Alan whisked me through different clusters and discussions, I strained to make out snatches of conversation, but as we passed, the volume dropped as if electronically regulated. Instinctively I kept track of the exits, the turns, the routes back out to freedom.
We landed in a conference room with an intimidatingly long marble table, a statue-still Secret Service post- stander, several ominously titled 'state operatives,' and a heavyset woman with horn-rims and an air of unflinching competence, introduced as the architect of the campaign. Adorning the walls were pictures of Caruthers- lost in thought in the Yellow Oval Room, on the distinctive trails around Camp David, at dinner sharing a joke with Gorbachev. At the end of the table was the man himself, cocked back in an Aeron chair, facing the window, shirtsleeves cuffed, phone pressed to his ear. Seated beside him and also facing away, June spoke simultaneously into another line. Her willowy form was accented by her sleek outfit, its flaring sleeves and pant cuffs echoing the lines of her sweeping red hair. A former prep-school dean, she was as tall as her husband and widely thought to be even smarter. They'd each been married before and their divorces made much of by the opposition. Even their well-advertised silver anniversary hadn't inoculated Caruthers from pious question-raising about his suitability as a role model.
Alan gestured toward the couple. When I raised my hands in bewilderment, he gestured again. Nervously I walked toward them, passing a number of empty chairs. I sat one chair away from them, past the table's curve, but the senator and his wife were too immersed in their conversations to notice me. Midday light came in through the window, framing their forms. I looked out with them across Westwood, Bel Air, the ribbons of smog caught on the Santa Monicas. Was I really here, pulled up to a table with Jasper and June Caruthers? Or was I still unconscious from the blast and dreaming this?
'I'm sure you could if you wanted to, Governor. I've certainly been made a fool of by lesser men than you.' Caruthers hung up, chuckled to draw his wife's attention, and swiveled to face me as if he'd known I was there all along.
'Nick, glad you could make it. I'm sorry to ask you to run around like this.'
He was the most important person I'd ever been in close proximity to, except maybe when I'd sat next to Nolan Ryan on a Southwest flight. Caruthers had a shaving nick at the point of his jaw and a fleck of a cherry mole on his forearm. Both inexplicably surprised me. 'No problem, Senator.'
He removed a box of gum from his pocket and popped a piece through the foil backing into his mouth. 'Voters hate smokers,' he said. 'So I've been addicted to nicotine gum for twenty-five years.' He tapped his wife on the shoulder, and she signed off and slotted the phone. 'What's all that about?' he asked her.
'The temperature in the auditorium for next week's debate,' she said, offering me a disarming smile that said she'd get to me in a minute. Her modest chin added to a deceptively demure appearance, but she was one glance away from sharp or sexy. 'We want seventy-three, they want seventy.'
'Why?'
'Bilton is a sweater.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake. Have it at sixty. I'll make him sweat anyway.'
June's attention moved to the cluster of workers at the far end of the table. 'We'll need antiperspirant for his forehead.' She ran her freshly manicured fingers through Caruthers's hair, pushing it up from his forehead. 'Something that won't chalk.' As she rose, Caruthers feigned indignation, which she met with an amused grin. 'Remember,' she said, 'this is why you married me.'
'Your ruthlessness?'
'No. To save you the humiliation of sweating like a pig on prime time.'
'You forget: I have the resilience of a used-car salesman.'
'I don't think Vanity Fair intended that as a compliment, darling,' she said, even as she shifted her focus to me.
I half rose from my chair and received her feminine handshake.
'Nick, it is such a pleasure. Thank you for what you did this morning, even if the boys in black didn't deal with you entirely on the up-and-up.' I followed her stare to the door, but the agent's face remained impassive. She leaned over her husband, kissed him, and headed out before I could stammer a response.
I felt disoriented, yanked out of my quiet existence into a plot I couldn't keep pace with. Everyone was being too damn polite, which told me that whatever I'd fallen into was as lethal as those innocuous-looking bundles of spent-fuel rods resting at the bottom of that pool. One thing was for sure: I was well out of my depth. I wiggled my sneaker ever so slightly-Charlie's key was still in there, insistent as ever.
Caruthers regarded the crew waiting on the far side of the room. 'Anything else?'
The woman in the horn-rimmed glasses said, with barely contained anger, 'Please do not ever again say 'ass' on broadcast television.'
'Come on. Voters like a little moderate swearing.'
'Not in Colorado Springs they don't.' She studied his frown, decided to press the point. 'Don't make me remind you and everyone else that you stepped in it on the family-values business.'
Alan redirected to cut the tension. 'We're still waiting on finals, but it looks like the San Onofre thing bumped Bilton's numbers.'
Caruthers waved him off, leaning to confide in me, 'When people are scared, they cozy up to the incumbent. If nothing else, Bilton is soothing for his consistency. When he dies, his tombstone will read, 'Here lies Andrew Bilton. He was appropriate.' ' Caruthers swept a hand in your-name-in-lights fashion, and I couldn't help but smile.
Alan said, 'Well, he's up three in the polls this morning. Masterfully handled operation, can't switch horses midstream, blah-blah-blah. They're spinning it as Bilton's idea to direct Secret Service resources to the threat.'
Caruthers scowled. 'Bilton wouldn't think of that if it was typed out on his teleprompter.'
'Well, it's his Service, sir. We're just borrowing it right now.' Alan shot an after-the-fact glance at the post- stander, whose face still betrayed nothing.
Caruthers and I were elbow to elbow at the end of the table, like two senior board members. 'All right, thank you, everyone. Please give me a moment with Nick.' He waved them out. 'You, too, James.'
The Secret Service agent at the door didn't budge. His even stare took my measure. 'I'd prefer not to leave you alone in a room with anyone, Senator.'
'I agree wholeheartedly. But this isn't anyone. It's Frank Durant's boy.'
'Okay.' The agent withdrew, but as he went through the door, I heard him say, 'Though we don't want you ending up like Frank Durant.'
Caruthers scowled after him before settling back in his chair. And then it was just me and a presidential candidate and the Westside laid out beyond the broad window.
He eyed me gamely. 'Are you a Democrat or a
Republican?'
'Neither,' I said. 'I didn't vote in the last election.'
'Yes you did,' he said. 'And your candidate won.'
It took a few seconds for me to pick up his meaning. Caruthers seemed to be pithy like Frank, even away from the cameras. He had the same talent for cutting to the heart of a matter, for leaving you reflective rather than defensive.
'Okay, fair enough-' I caught myself. 'With all due respect…'
He was leaning forward, genuinely interested in me now, or else doing an excellent job of faking it. 'Please, by all means, continue.'
'The dogma and feigned moral indignation, it just wears at me. In my old job, I saw a lot of policy changes, and God knows Bilton has gutted social services, but I've found that whatever politicians promise, it usually doesn't
