Interface (58 page)

But did that justify slashing the tires of his ambulance? McLane
continued to thumb his way mentally through Plato's
Republic,
looking for guidance.

Plato advocated dividing the republic into three categories:
rulers, warriors, and tradesmen. Tradesmen were allowed to
become rich. Rulers and warriors were to live simply and to receive
the best possible education, in the hopes of producing philosopher
kings.

Tip McLane was a philosopher king. Karl Fort was a tradesman.
And according to Plato, the worst form of injustice occurred when
people tried to force their way into a class where they did not
belong - e.g., when warriors tried to seize political power (the
Soviet coup), or politicians meddled in military campaigns
(Vietnam War), or in the affairs of private enterprise (burdensome
government regulation).

Or when tradesmen tried to use their wealth to gain political power, which could lead to the degenerate form of government
known as oligarchy.

Representative Nimrod T. ("Tip") McLane inserted the blade of his pocketknife deep into one of the treads. The rubber was tough,
but so was Tip McLane, and eventually it gave way and he felt the
blade penetrate into the tire. Then all he had to do was twist, and
air began to hiss out, feeling cold and wet as it flowed over his hand.

The ambulance settled, almost as if it were going to roll over on
top of him. He was startled by a popping noise that came from the flaccid tire as its bead popped loose from the rim. That was extra
good; it would make the tire much more difficult to reinflate.

He withdrew the knife, folded it back into his pocket, and then strolled back through the roses to the backyard.

The EMTs transferred Karl Fort on to a gurney and wheeled him
across the yard, through the Markhams' house, and out to the
ambulance, chased the whole way by journalists who left a trail of
baked-bean footprints across the polished-granite floors and the
oriental rugs. The ambulance traveled about ten feet down the
drive, veering uncontrollably to the left, and then stopped.

Someone ran inside and called another ambulance. Two of the
EMTs jumped out and began to change the tire. Shooting through
the rear windows of the van, the media were able to get beautiful
shots of another EMT, on his knees next to Fort, holding up the
electric paddles, preparing to administer the sacrament of
defibrillation.

Karl Fort lingered in the hospital for five days. According to
tracking polls commissioned by the McLane campaign, the Rev. Sweigel's support climbed all the way up to the 20 percent mark
when Fort's condition was upgraded from critical to serious.
But when Fort's kidneys went, on the Saturday before the big vote, the voters began to show disillusionment, and when he finally died
on Sunday evening, just in time for the eleven p.m. news, the Reverend's standing collapsed like a popped balloon.

Tip McLane and his crew had already gotten the news, through
private channels. He and Zorn and Drasher went down to their
hotel bar for a drink and watched the coverage of Fort's death, and
then of the day's campaign events. They were joined by a couple
of writers for major East Coast newspapers, men who had been
assigned to the McLane campaign for the last few months and
whom they had gotten to know well. They bought each other
drinks and talked off the record late into the night. Though no one
came out and said it, they all knew that the primary campaign was
over.

34

Eleanor Richmond rented a town house in the Rosemont
neighborhood of Alexandria. It had actually been part of D.C. at
one point and had been ceded back to the state of Virginia in 1846,
so she could weakly maintain that she was back living in her
hometown once more.

This historical argument was completely lost on all of her
relatives in the District, who had been delighted when she
announced she was coming home, and then hurt and angry when
she chose to live in Virginia. But Eleanor had already seen her son
get shot in the back, and as far as she was concerned, D.C. didn't
have anything to offer her kids except for a few museums and a whole lot of ways to get shot.

She was in a nice, mixed-race neighborhood near Alexandria's
eighteenth-century waterfront. If she went uphill she got into an
aristocratic neighborhood of big houses, bordering on mansions. If
she went downhill, toward the Potomac, she got to the proverbial
other side of the tracks in just a few minutes. Straddling the
boundary, on the tracks themselves, was the Braddock Metro
station, from which she could ride into D.C. in about ten minutes.
Braddock's modest parking lot was ringed by nice new yuppie
condos, shops, and office buildings. Beyond that was a floodplain between the tracks and the river, filled with dingy town houses and
projects, bounded by the outskirts of National Airport on the north
and the swank cobblestones of Old Town on the south. Compared
to the bad parts of D.C., it didn't deserve the description of ghetto; it was just a lower-middle-class neighborhood. It was something
Eleanor could point to when her relatives in D.C. made catty
remarks to the effect that she had sold out and fled to white
suburbia.

She still hadn't gotten used to being respectable again. When she
looked at real estate, she kept expecting people to glare at her
suspiciously and say, "Have you ever been a bag lady?" But all she
had to do was say that she was senate staff and all the doors were
open to her: nice new apartments, charge accounts at Pentagon
Plaza, auto loans. It astounded her when she was able to go into a
Toyota dealership and drive out an hour later with a brand-new
Camry.

Harmon, Jr., and Clarice stayed behind in Denver long enough
to finish out the school year and then followed her out to
Alexandria. In the fall they would go to T.C. Williams High
School, just a mile or two up the street. In the meantime, over the
summer, there was a lot for them to do. The nearby Metro station
meant that they could get around town easily (which they liked)
and safely (which Eleanor liked). And, after a bit of looking around,
Eleanor found a nice extended-care facility (what used to be called
a nursing home) where she could put Mother.

Mother had no idea, really, that she was back home, but as she
looked out the windows of the car on her way in from the airport and smelled the air of the late Virginia spring, Eleanor imagined
that, at some level, she knew where she was, and that she was glad
to be back where she belonged, not out in the middle of Colorado
sharing a room with some rancher's widow. Whether or not
Mother knew what was going on, bringing her back here was good for Eleanor's heart, and made her feel that she was doing right by
her mom.

When Eleanor showed up for her first day of work, a week
before Memorial Day, she had no idea what she was doing; Senator
Marshall still had not defined her responsibilities or even provided
her with a job title. She was both excited and intensely curious. She
walked to the Braddock Metro station at seven. Her neighbor
hood's sidewalks were filled with commuters headed for the Metro
station. As Eleanor entered this stream of suit-and-tie-wearing,
newspaper-reading professionals, carrying her very proper attache
case, wearing her Reeboks, and holding on to her
Washington Post,
she felt like a spy testing out a new undercover identity.

From the raised platform of the Metro station she looked across
the public housing toward National Airport, the 727s plunging in at forty-second intervals, and across the Potomac to D.C. The
pleasant, scented spring air was still cool, and as she looked through
the haze, she could see the monumental structures that were now
part of her world. The Metro glided into the station, eerily clean
and high-tech compared to The Ride. She boarded, found a place
to stand where she could look out the window, and watched the progression through Crystal City, Pentagon City, Pentagon, and
then out into daylight across the Potomac. She saw the National
Cathedral drawing the light of the sun, peeked in at Thomas
Jefferson, and got to L'Enfant Plaza, where she transferred to the
Orange Line for two stops over to the Capitol. Since she was a few
minutes early, she chose to be a tourist, and strolled through the
Capitol on her way over to the Russell Senate Office Building.

She was greeted at the gate of the Russell Building by a
handsome, very young-looking black man from Senate Security. "If you'll follow me, Mrs. Richmond, we'll get your credentials in order."

Eleanor was still new enough at this that she was surprised when
people recognized her. "Thank you," she said. "I didn't expect someone to meet me at the door. I thought I'd be standing in lines
all day."

"When Senator Marshall speaks, we move," the man said.
"We're taught that all senators are equal, but we love Senator
Marshall. He's not one of your blow-dry wonders, if you get my
drift."

They took an elevator down two levels and entered an office
where Eleanor was photographed, finger-printed, asked to sign her
official signature, and then take the oath as an employee of the
United States. A petite, perhaps sixty-year-old woman read the
oath.

She proceeded into the next office and was given her holo
graphic badge, complete with innumerable codes implanted in the
strips on the back of the badge. She wondered what she was going
to do with a Top-Secret Alpha clearance.

"That's it," her guide said. "Now you have one very cranky senator waiting to put you to work."

The Russell was the oldest and most prestigious of the three senate
office buildings. It had the aura of fine old wood, penetrated by decades of good tobacco smoke. It was the building of choice and Marshall had the office of choice, with a commanding view of the
Capitol out one window and down the Mall and Constitution
Avenue down the other. Entering the office, Eleanor was struck by
the profusion of Native American art, mission decor, and numerous
watercolors painted by Marshall before his arthritis had made it
impossible for him to hold a brush. His secretary of thirty years, Patty McCormick, turned and said, "Hello darlin', welcome to the last frontier."

From around the corner, the familiar husky voice shouted,
"Goddamn it Patty, don't scare her away. Come on in, Eleanor."

Eleanor edged into the Senator's office and found him working
his way through a breakfast sent up from the cafeteria. "Have a
seat," he said, waving at one of the heavy leather chairs.

"Good morning, Senator, how are you feeling?"

"Shitty, as usual, but that's nothing new. I'll be god-damned if
I'll take pain medication. I haven't got an awful lot of brain cells left
and I want them to work."

They made a little small talk about her move to Alexandria.
Caleb seemed surprisingly unhurried, for a senator. Eleanor kept
wondering when he was going to tell her why she'd been hired.
Finally she came out and asked.

"Should we talk about what you want me to do?'

"Sure, why not. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, I'm still slightly overwhelmed to be here."

"How'd you like to be my spokesperson?"

Eleanor couldn't help laughing. At first she chuckled politely because she assumed it was a joke. Then she laughed out loud in shock, realizing he was serious. "Senator, you are one crazy fool."

"You ever see one of those stupid old Westerns where the bad
guys come riding into town and they just start shooting at
everything? They shoot out all the windows, they shoot holes in
the water barrels, they pick off people on the balconies. I always
thought that looked like fun. Well, I'm out of here soon and I have
a lot to say and I want to have somebody to say it who will make
an impression, not one of these generic press mavens who keep
massaging messages and doing sound bites. You and I, young lady,
are going to shoot a few holes in this goddamn town before I end this ride."