Eddy's Current (10 page)

“I’ve already had it checked. I know what it is.

“There’s the phone already. Wow! Five fifteen—earlier than I thought. I’ll answer each call. We’ll be coy. Each reporter who calls will be told that you will have to call him back. We will discuss the call and then you will return it. The only exceptions will be for Jacksonville–market television stations and Hancock. Remember, you’re hot. You have got to think entirely different than you did just a day or so ago, when you were ready to pack it in.”

“I was not ready to pack it in a day or so ago. You were ready for me to pack it in. Remember?”

“Dominici here,” Dominici said, answering the phone. “He’s getting ready for an interview right now. Let me have your name and number and I’ll have him call you right back. Yes, yes, I promise that you’ll be next. You’ll be the next reporter he talks to. Yes, I’m sure. Thank you for calling.”

The day was grueling, but the work was well worth it. Alex had engaged Jennings, just as Dominici had said he must, and he had done so without uttering a bad word about him. Media interest in Perez’s candidacy was off the charts.

At four forty that afternoon, Dominici’s phone rang with a call he really didn’t want. It was a producer for Hancock’s only real competition during the eight o’clock hour. It was the only phone call Dominici hoped would not come. Sam Brighton was cable news’ most boring commodity. His producer was calling to speak to Perez, to set up a live interview between Brighton and Perez that would be broadcast that evening. Brighton embodied everything Hancock despised about the media. Brighton was nice, though, and far less edgy than Hancock. Viewers seemed to like him; however, they watched Hancock more, by a margin of five to one.

It was a dilemma for Dominici. The increased exposure would help, of that Dominici had no doubt, but an interview granted to Brighton this early on might infuriate Hancock, and Hancock was unforgiving. He might turn on his new friend, Perez, as quickly as he had embraced him just fifteen hours earlier. Brighton was too nice to state publicly that he had been turned down by Perez, so Dominici gambled.

“Mr. Perez is not available. He’s preparing for tomorrow’s news conference. He’s really running tight today. As soon as he’s done preparing for the news conference, he has to go to see his parents. It’s very important to him. You know, personal stuff.”

While Brighton was known as a nice guy, his producer was not. “This is Cheryl Thompston; I have to speak with Mr. Perez now. It will take only a few minutes. Is he there, near the phone? Please put him on. Thank you.”

“Ms. Thompson,—” Dominici began his sentence, mistakenly using the wrong salutation and mispronouncing the producer’s last name.

“My name is Mrs. Thompston. Please place Mr. Perez on the line. Is he afraid to face our questions? He seems to have established himself as quite a rising political star. We just wanted to ask him a few questions before his interview tonight with Mr. Brighton.”

“I really appreciate your call, Mrs. Thompston, but Mr. Perez will not be available. It’s just impossible. I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I do not understand. I need ten minutes of his time now, and tonight’s interview will take less than that. Please put him on. I’m on a tight schedule.”

“I’m sorry, but today’s schedule is tight for us as well—really impossible. We’ll get back with you at a later time,” Dominici said. “Goodbye, and thanks for calling.”

Thompston hung up without saying goodbye and without getting a commitment for an interview.

Dominici and Perez were in the driver’s seat. The campaign funds were flooding in, but Dominici hoped that reporters wouldn’t ask about that. He wanted Perez to seem poor, ethical, smart and dedicated, and eventually abused by Jennings. He wanted the consummate underdog—every campaign manager’s dream.

The news conference was a success. Reporters gloated over Perez. Softball questions were tossed gently to him, not thrown hard at him, and he responded respectfully, articulately, with intelligence and a sense of humor. The only tough question came when a reporter baited him with a derogatory question about Jennings. “Thomas Jennings seems to some to be a rich, detached lawyer who is aggressively seeking this seat in order to gain for himself. Do you see him that way?”

“Mr. Jennings is a fine attorney, and one that I will respect even more for accepting my victory with the class and dignity that I’m sure he has.” The reporters chuckled. Perez was a natural with them.

By the morning of day twenty–two, everything had changed for the better for Perez, and things were far worse for Jennings. Caught completely off guard by the ascension of his unexpectedly formidable opponent, Jennings seemed to be on the defensive when asked about the race, especially when the subject of Perez’s campaign came up.

Jennings had not scheduled his time to include an actively–engaged campaign. His work schedule at his law office was overwhelming. He had believed that he could take on all the professional work he wanted while allowing his public relations people to promote his campaign and carry him in his royal victory chair to his new office in D.C. His plan to coast to victory with minimum effort was in big trouble.

The media were sensing that their once–promising messiah was a mere wounded mortal. Jennings was bleeding. One by one the members of the media were exchanging one savior, Jennings, for the other, Perez. Dominici was right all along. He did not make mistakes when it came to campaign strategy.

Dominici’s daughter, Kathy, saw her father being interviewed on one of the cable news channels; she also noticed Alex. She couldn’t help but to notice him. She took one look at the TV screen while Alex’s face was shown, and began to feel particular physical feelings that she was embarrassed to feel. Still, she liked the feelings, and she thought she might like Alex as well.

Her father looked good, she thought—cleaned up, and seemingly back on track. She missed him. Even given the years of hard feelings, she was still his little girl after all. Kathy drove down from Atlanta to see him after twelve years of estrangement. She hoped he would embrace her and forgive her and reconcile with her, just as she intended to embrace him and forgive him and reconcile with him. She also admitted to herself that her motives were not entirely pure: She wanted to meet Alex, too.

Kathy was a lovely woman, inside and out. She was physically small, highly ethical, independent and determined, pretty and feminine, intelligent and caring. She drove six hours to see her father—and to meet Alex. She went to her father’s home, arrived at about three in the afternoon, and knocked on the door. He was not expecting her so he had gone to the office supply store to pick up a few things. Alex answered the door.

He was even more than she believed he would be. Yes, he was handsome, even more handsome than the TV showed him to be. He was beautiful. She wondered why it took so long to finally lay eyes on a man like him. She was tempted to lay other things on him as well.

Kathy was the most beautiful woman Alex had ever seen. He was awestruck by her beauty. And her gorgeous eyes! Her smile melted Alex. Where did all this come from? She was dropped into his presence from heaven, he just knew!

“Hi, I’m… uh… Kathy, uh Dominici. Is Mr. Domin— I mean, my father, is he home?” she said to Alex.

Though he wanted to appear to be cool and collected, Alex stumbled his way to uttering absolute nonsense—words that exited his mouth with all the grace of a whooping crane as it exits the marshland on takeoff.

“Oh, uh, aaah, let’s see. Dominici, he’s your… he’s not here. Will be returned in fifteen, thirty minutes. Should, I guess, come in and wait for he to return, don’t you think?”

Not exactly smooth.

Alex and Kathy sat and talked for twenty minutes before Dominici returned home from the office supply store. By the time he pulled into the driveway, the two of them were laughing at their initial awkward greeting.

Kathy became unbearably nervous as she heard the sound of her father’s car door close, then the outer screen door that led onto the front porch, then the front door to the house. Then, there he stood, facing her.

There was no hint of the anger and long–simmering bitterness between the two. They both melted. Tears streamed down their cheeks. They embraced, as Kathy had hoped they would. When one attempted to release the other, they both hugged all the tighter. Words were not necessary, and there were few of them. After five minutes of silent reconciliation, talk began, but not talk of reconciliation. Reconciliation had already taken place and was accepted by both. It was talk that grows out from reconciliation already achieved.

Alex decided to leave, to give them time to get caught up. Kathy didn’t want him to go. Almost like a middle school student would want her boyfriend to stay to get to know her and her father, Kathy wanted Alex to stay. It was better that he leave, though, and so he did. Kathy and her father stayed awake talking until two o’clock the next morning.

“Alex, where are you?” Dominici asked Alex on the phone at five thirty the next morning. “You were supposed to be here at five fifteen.”

“What time did you go to bed, Dom?” Alex asked, in disbelief that he was awakened by a ringing phone at that hour.

“Two o’clock; three hours ago. Listen, I’ve got to get a jump on things today. We’ve got to get together early. Jennings is angry. He’s spouting off, using irresponsible wording. He’s bent on destroying you. We have to take advantage of him now. If we wait too long, someone will get to him and tell him to shut up. It’ll be too late then.”

“Dom, what are you talking about?”

“A debate. We’ve got to challenge him to a debate. He’s over the top. He’ll pop off and come across as negative and angry. It’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

“I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

“Hurry up.”

Alex arrived at Dominici’s house at six forty–five.

“You’re late,” Dominici said, as Alex exited his car to come inside the house.

“I know I’m late. You’ve told me five times.”

“Come on inside. I’ve got to go over my idea with you. I’m excited.

“Listen, Alex; Jennings said some outrageous things on the late news last night. He must have decided that the way he’s going to deal with your surge in the polls is to cut you off at the knees, then stab you in the back as you’re falling to the ground.”

“He better not have said anything slanderous about my family or me. I’ll sue him.”

“He said you were ugly; you thin–skinned baby.

“Listen, listen. Pay attention. We want him to say bad things, ugly things, even slanderous things. He’s said them, okay? Now we’ll take him up on his offer for a debate. He didn’t think we would do it when he offered last month. I stalled him on purpose so he wouldn’t think we would deal with him face to face. We will face him, though. You will, calmly and with complete composure, prove that he is a liar and a bitter man. And you will prove that without using those words.”

“I don’t get it. So what; he’s a lawyer,” Alex said.

“Funny, Alex. Real funny,” Dominici replied.

“Heroes and messiahs don’t engage in lying and they’re not bitter. They respond to attacks calmly with absolute truth. Remember what this game is about? By the time I’m done prepping you for the debate, he will come off as the devil and you as the savior. Then the media will turn on him like a pack of wolves, not because of his lies — they don’t care so much about that — but because his throne will be tainted.”

“How do we go about asking him to debate?” Alex asked.

“We don’t ask him to debate. Not directly. We submit to a requested interview, purportedly to answer questions the media has about his charges against you. Then we ask the media for the debate that they planned to sponsor anyway. He’s on record with them as having asked us for the debate. He’ll be in a no–win situation. He’ll realize that as soon as he sees your interview, and he’ll be so upset that he’ll probably go jump off a bridge.

“And I’ve got more news, good news.”

“What’s going on?”

“The republicans have given up. They’re out of the race. The official reason is that their candidate can’t take the pressure on his family because his mother and brother are both extremely sick. My inside source there tells me that the illnesses provide a convenient excuse for the republicans to pack it in.”

“What’s the real reason?” Alex asked.

“The republicans are afraid of an embarrassing and humiliating defeat at the hands of an unknown newcomer.”

“Jennings is well known. He’s not a newcomer,” Alex said.

“No. Not Jennings. It’s you they’re afraid of. You’re the odds on favorite now, even though you’re behind in the polls. The experts know that you’ve got the momentum now, and that Jennings is worried. Being worried is one thing; acting worried is another. He’s acting as if he’s worried. I think he has good reason.

“Anyway, we’ll set up the debate for next Thursday night at UF. That’s when the media wanted to hold it, so it’ll be good all the way around. It’ll be perfect timing. The primary is only a month away,” Alex explained.

Hancock’s network announced that it would carry the debate live; Brighton’s network announced that they would not broadcast the debate at all.

The debate began as most modern day political debates do—handshakes, acknowledgments, fake but polite gestures and greetings, and the moderator’s final introductions and admonishments. All who were to appear on camera checked the monitors to see how they looked in the limelight. Last minute primping was done rapidly, hopefully without drawing too much notice.

The audience was young, probably an average age of around thirty. And undoubtedly some were naive. It was a safe bet that most were of above–average intelligence.

Jennings swung wildly at the first pitch, trying to hit a home run. Perez remained calm. “So, Mr. Perez the question posed to me by the moderator was, ‘Do I believe that my opponent is qualified for the job?’ I will begin by saying outright that you are not qualified. You have no experience, and clearly you can’t even keep a job. You’re unemployed and you were dismissed from the FBI after only a year or so? How can that be? You trained for so long. Why would they, shall we say, ‘allow you to resign’ after only a short period?