Primary Colors (14 page)

"Yeah, but we've got that Southern swing week after next, and--" "Yeah." He was listening to someone talking. Then he said to me: "Time's closed already? No shit. Gotta be someone there. Spork's trying his guy at home."

We talked logistics some more. You can talk logistics forever and never talk logistics enough. Finally, Brad said, "Hold on," and then, really excited: "Spork found him at home. He's shootin' me a thumbs-up. He's jumpin' his fat ass up and down. We're happening, Henry! It's on."

I raced out of the room. Slowed down. Past the scorps in the lobby, into the gym, where Stanton was talking about shoe imports and the room was feeling kind of drowsy. I moved into his line of sight, locked in, gave him a cut sign. He went on. He took another question, about early education. Shit. That would be good for another ten minutes--and it was. As he wound down I said, pretty loud: "Last question, Governor."

"We'll just take one or two more," he said. I rolled my eyes, so only he could see. He flashed me a smile: Let time work, he was saying. He had this sense about these things. He knew how and when an audience felt tapped out, listened to.

I went back out into the lobby. I called Manchester, asked for Richard. "Great, huh?" I said.

"You forget what I'm doing here, Henri?"

"We're on the cover of Time, man."

"Does he know yet?"

"No, he's in mega-explain mode. Doing shoe imports. Can't shut him up."

"Henri, we can't fuck this other thing up. We're gonna fuck it up--but we can't. Y'knowhattamean? We gotta get Susan on board. Hate to admit, ol' Daisy Mae got it right."

Stanton was moving now There was a shuffle from inside, the doors swung open, doors opening and closing, stuffy air from inside, cold air from outside. I moved toward Stanton, found my place near his elbow, watched the handshakes. An elderly woman hugged hint. "You remind me of Kennedy," she said breathlessly. "He was here. I saw him. He was thinner than you--but you're just as cute."

We moved him toward the van, into the van. Barry Gaultier was still with us--good. This news should do it. There was a knocking on the window. It was Bob O'Connell, from The Washington Post. He wanted to ask a question, he was moving along with the van as we were beginning to roll. "Hold it," I said, but Mitch was already moving and O'Connell had given up, with a very pissed-off look. What was that?

Anyway: "Governor, you're on the cover of Time magazine this Monday."

Stanton turned, looked at me--and then at Barry Gaultier. "What's the cover line?" he asked.

Shit. I didn't know. I could see he was pissed. But--saved by Barry Gaultier. (No time for temper now.) "Whatd'ya think, Barry?" Stanton asked. "Not bad, huh? This thing's got some flame under it now."

"Not bad at all," Barry said, fumbling--looking for his next move.

"Now, I know you've been thinking long and hard about this," Stanton said, fixing Barry Gaultier with an intensity that the poor man probably had never experienced before in his life. Stanton seemed to expand in the van--and he scented to have turned fully from the front seat, turned to face Gaultier directly. It was an amazing thing. I couldn't imagine what he'd done to his body. The air wasn't moving. There was no sound from outside. No wind. "And I know," Stanton continued, "that your endorsement means a lot--it's your word of honor, it's your bond--and that it would mean the world to me here in New Hampshire. You have it in your power to make the next president of the United States, and I know you don't take it lightly. I don't take it lightly. Everyone knows the respect that people have for you here. But listen, Barry: We are going to do great things. We are going to make history. You want to be part of that. You want to be part of it now--and next year in Washington, after we win. We'll make a place for you, an important place. I'm not the sort who forgets who brung him to the dance. We take care of our friends, Barry. You know what that means, right?"

"Right, but--"

"A tide. There's the matter of a title. How does strategic coordinator sound?"

"Great. It couldn't sound better. Of the whole campaign?" Gaultier asked.

"Strategic coordinator for the New England region."

"Ahhh." Barry almost choked.

"You'll be in on the highest councils of this effort," Jack Stanton said. "You'll be a part of the team."

I had been holding my breath, I realized. I exhaled.

And then inhaled again, sharply, at Conway. Rob Quiston of AP, a solid guy--a straight shooter, no bullshit, no games--opened the can door for Stanton and said, "Governor, we're going to need a reaction from you on this."

I jumped out behind him. Barry Gaultier was behind me.

"The Los Angeles Times is reporting that you were arrested in a radical demonstration before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968."

"Yes, I know," Stanton said. "It was a mistake. I was detained, not arrested."

"And that you called a United States senator to get you out ofjail." "I . . . I don't . . ."

"And that he persuaded the mayor of Chicago to have your record expunged--"

"Well, I don't know about that part."

I noticed the movement had stopped behind me. Barry Gaultier wasn't getting out of the van.

"This is bullshit," Susan said. "It's just bullshitjack wasn't a radical." "It don' look great, ma'am," Richard said.

"Yeah, but it's not important. People don't care about this kind of thing."

It was late Sunday morning. Brunch in the Stanton suite at the downtown Holiday Inn in Manchester. There was a good-sized dining room table in this one. We had shoved stacks of newspapers and briefing papers down one end of the table. There were bagels and Danish pastries, and a platter of sorry-looking scrambled eggs an
d c
ardboard bacon that no one touched, except Daisy, who broke off and nibbled tiny pieces of it. Lucille Kauffman, who was there when we arrived--much to our dismay--carefully monitored everything everyone was eating. The governor was off, working churches.

"They might care about it," I said. "It's early. We don't know what they care about yet, for sure."

"Nobody cares about this stuff except the press," Lucille said. "It's microscopic, meaningless. They're pigs and we should never forget that. Treat them like the pigs they are. I know you like them, Henry--and I know they've . . . mythologized you, Richard. But they're scum. They're the enemy--they're what's standing between us and victory" Was this necessary? Everyone in the room knew who the scorps were and what they did. Lucille was performing for Susan, it seemed. I found myself wanting to be able to look at Daisy: to see her eyes, to feel her reaction, but she was sitting next to me, down the table from Susan, who was at the head. Richard and Lucille sat across from us, in front of the plate-glass balcony window. Cold, windy Manchester was behind and below them. I wanted to get up, take a look at it, see if there were any clues out there.

"Okay, Lucille, let's say you're right," Richard said, his eyes opaque behind thick lenses. He was being careful. "They are scum. They are shitbird reptiles." Then he had a thought and because Richard again, up like a shot and pacing around the table: "Say you're out in the woods, takin' a shit, and a wild boar comes chargin' at you. Do you pull up your pants and run? Or do you try to pull up your pants and grab those doves you just shot, and then try to run, all at the same time? You forget the fucking doves, right?" He began to giggle, and swallow his words. He was all tangled up in it now and, incredibly, he wouldn't give up. He was a stubborn sonofabitch: it got worse. He seemed to be imploring Susan. "You pull up your pants and run. Y'knowhattamean? You'd grab your gun before you took the goddamn doves. And you'd pull up your pants rather'n shoot the boar, 'cause you don' have time to aim and button your fly. And, if you miss, you don't want to die with your dick hangin' out. So, hah, hah, yeah. I guess that's right. Y'might even leave your gun if the boar's runnin' fast enough. Y'knowhattamean? Might even forget your gun and save your ass."

"Richard," Lucille said. "I can assure you that none of us has a clue what you're talking about."

"You leave the doves for the boar," he said. "You gotta feed the beast."

"I think what Richard is saying," Daisy said, "is that this is the game we have--it's the only game in town--and we're not in complete control of the rules. There are other players. We have to think about them, and react to them."

"That's what I was saying," Lucille said. "He was killing birds and taking a--"

"Daisy," Susan said, cutting Lucille off. "So what do we do? How would you deal with them?"

"I have to go to the ladies' room," Lucille announced.

Richard stirred, about to say something, thought better of it. He let Daisy take the lead. He had sensed she could talk to Susan better than either of us could--and she was doing it, with a quiet confidence. "We need to beat them at their own game," Daisy said. "We need to know more than they do, and anticipate what they're up to. We need to be prepared when a story like this one turns up, be able to strike back--with the truth."

"How can you know what kind of garbage they're going to come up with?" Susan asked, cutting to the chase.

"Well," Daisy said, "We have to-- We need an operation to do research. Y'know? We need someone who can--"

"Investigate ourselves?" Susan asked. She seemed to settle in her chair. She knew what it was about now. "Our lives?"

Lucille came back. She walked into the silence but had no sense of it--remarkable: a woman without intuition or antennae. "This is all ridiculous," she said. "We don't play their game. We're playing the people's game. We say to them: The media and the Republicans want the election to be about trash. We want it to be about your future. People will understand. They won't swallow this hogwash. We don't shoot doves in this campaign, Richard. We protect them."

It was a standoff. I looked at Richard. He was considering jumping out the window. I couldn't see Daisy, didn't want to look directly at Susan. She knew this. "Henry," she said. "You agree with Daisy?"

I nodded. "We can't assume-" I began, and then I was paged. I checked it: Laurene on the utterly urgent line. "I think I have to take this," I said.

Susan-briefly, fleetingly-flashed fear. She had imagined the worst possible news about her husband; she lived with that, I realized. It was understandable, but awful. I felt awful for her. But she quickly covered the fear with something less intense: concern. "Go ahead. Who is it?"

"Laurene," I said.

"Isn't she terrific?" Lucille said as I dialed.

"Henry, this is insane," Laurene said. "We got twenty camera crews out here, more scorps than you can shake a stick at. They're waiting for him to come out of church. What do we do?"

"Hold on," I said, then explained the situation to Susan and the rest.

"Animals," Lucille said. "It's Sunday."

Susan shushed her: "Henry?"

"Laurene, you've got Mitch there?" I said. She said Uh-huh. "He's wearing a tie?" Uh-huh. "Send him into the church with a note for the governor. Say this in the note: 'Swarm outside. Will need react on LA Times story. Remember it's Sunday.' Okay? And listen: Stay very cool and friendly, unconcerned. Pity them for being such lowlife jerks that they have to cover this piece of shit nothing of a story on a Sunday. Act like it's nothing, okay? Then call me back when it's done."

I hung up. Susan seemed shaken, Lucille impervious. "See, Henry," she said. "when it comes right down to it, you feel the same way about them as the rest of us do."

"Oh come on, Lucille," I said, figuring: Fuck it. "It's apples and oranges. You don't need to love them to know how they think, what they need. It's not about protecting doves, it's about feeding time. We've got to be able to control when it's dinnertime and what's on the platter."

"We're flying blind here," Richard blurted. "We need to know everyth---"

Susan started. Everyone saw it.

"Okay," she said, slowly. "We'll do it. I'll tell the governor. But we will control it. I want Libby Holden to do it. It has to be someone who knows us, someone we trust."

"Is she out of the hospital?" Lucille asked. Susan nodded. "Is she, y'know, okay now?" Lucille asked. Susan nodded.

Richard looked at me. I shrugged. I had heard of Olivia Holden. She had been Jack Stanton's chief of staff, but she'd quit suddenly in a dramatic, tearful--and utterly incoherent--press conference several years back; and then disappeared.

Each of us had just found out where she had gone. And Susan had just placed the campaign in her hands.

Chapter
IV

Olivia Holden was wearing, I swear, a tan down vest, an orange-and-green tie-dyed muumuu and an Aussie outback hat. She was enormous, with fierce, piercing blue eyes, hair turning gray, skin that was waxy pale and translucent in a sickly way. She was lugging a large leather satchel. Everything stopped-even the phones seemed to stop ringing-when she marched into the Mammoth Falls headquarters two days after the New Hampshire church debacle. The office staff was somewhat depleted; most of the troops were up in Manchester. There were volunteers working the phones, plus some new staffers-people I didn't know, hired by Brad Lieberman-and a few of the old muffins. The Olds dealership felt open, airy; all Mammoth Falls did, after New Hampshire. The world seemed a quieter place. Except for Olivia.