The Candidate (37 page)

By the time he returned to the living room the story had spread across the cable channels, at first citing Drudge and then slowly their own sources. It metastasized like a blossoming tumor. Within an hour the
New York Times
website spat out details no one else had. Then the
Washington Post.
The whole picture emerged. The payments to Carillo, his history of murder and massacre and the identity of Natalia as a brutal government assassin. Hodges’ signature on the orders giving the go ahead to the attack on Santa Teresa quickly formed the center-piece of the story. Anchors and talking heads raced to pretend to be experts about a country and a war about which they knew next to nothing.

It took three hours for Dee to make her first TV appearance. Mike flinched at the sight of her. It was a live link-up from Hodges’ campaign headquarters in Columbia to the Fox studio. Dee looked relaxed and calm and refused to respond to the details of the anchor’s persistent questioning. She was on TV to deliver one message only and she kept finding ways to repeat it.

“Senator Hodges has always done his duty by his country. He is a patriotic American. He will be giving an interview tonight to answer any questions you may have fully and frankly,” she said. She intoned the sentences over and over again like a mantra.

The message seemed to work and subdued some of the more hysterical fever around the story. Finally Mike could not take it anymore. He switched off the phone and rooted around in the kitchen. He knew his mother would have left a half-smoked pack of cigarettes in there somewhere. He quickly found a crumpled pack of Camels. He pulled out one. He had not smoked since he left for Florida, but now he welcomed the sudden need for nicotine like an old friend putting an arm around his shoulder.

He stepped outside and shivered against the cold but didn’t bother to put on a coat. He inhaled deeply and looked out over the houses and streets that he had known all his life. He felt the smoke go into his lungs and he held it there for as long as he could, until it burned. Then he breathed out and his head became wreathed in blue gray mist. It obscured his vision for a moment, stinging his eyes, and gave him an excuse for the tears that streamed down his cheeks.

* * *

“SHUT UP and get away from me!” Dee snapped at the young TV runner who hovered next to her and carried a clipboard. The woman, probably no older than 25, skittered away like a fly avoiding a swat.

“Jesus!” Dee swore.

She was aware her hands were tightly clenched into fists and the rest of the people in the studio green room looked at her, including Hodges who sat in a chair having thick layers of make-up applied to his craggy face.

Dee shrugged an apology for her outburst. At least Hodges looked calm, she thought. She understood now just how ice cold his blood must be and why he was such a good soldier. He rarely revealed any hint of emotional turmoil throughout the day. He kept his head calm and clear and absorbed Dee’s advice, taking it all in and then agreeing to her plan. One interview. Go with the national security line. Stick to it. Do not lose your head. No matter what the provocation.

They practiced for several hours earlier that evening. Dee fired question after question at Hodges and goaded him with insults veiled as questions.

“What do you say to those who compare your actions to My Lai in Vietnam?” she asked.

Hodges did not budge. Each time he calmly and quietly asserted his patriotism as an American soldier in the middle of the Cold War. “I never shirked from doing my military duty for my country,” he said.

Dee was impressed. We can do this, she thought. We really can. But she knew that keeping calm in the face of her questions was a whole different beast from weathering the blasts from a trained news anchor on live television. It would also be an arena in which a single mistake could cost them everything. Even a stutter or a pause could destroy their whole campaign. They must get everything, absolutely everything, right. First time.

The runner reappeared nervously. “Three minutes to air,” she said, avoiding Dee’s gaze.

Hodges stood up, his spine as straight as a board. A US flag adorned his lapel, bigger than usual. Dee insisted on it and put it on like the medals that once were pinned there. It was a deliberate echo. She wanted him to look every inch the American hero.

Hodges strode out without a glance at her. He looked like he was going into battle. Or to face a firing squad. She was not sure which. Dee followed.

The walk to the studio was only a few yards and Christine waited there. Hodges leaned in and kissed her, putting a hand up to her cheek reassuringly. He then strode over to the interview chair.

The anchor, Katie Reynolds, was already seated, adorned in an explosion of expensively coiffed blond hair. Having Reynolds was part of the deal on granting the interview to this channel. She was good and well respected. But she was also young. Dee figured she was more likely than most to be a little susceptible to being star-struck.

Hodges sat down opposite her and nodded a hello. The countdown began. Sixty seconds to go… then fifty… then forty. Suddenly Hodges leaned forward and rested a hand lightly on Reynolds’ forearm.

“Be gentle with me, Katie,” he said.

It was a trick Dee told him to pull. But she was not sure he would do it. Yet he pulled it off seamlessly. Even from where Dee was standing she knew Reynolds was flustered. It might have been the physical contact, or Hodges’ open flirtation, but she squirmed on her chair and glanced around nervously. Thirty… twenty… ten. Then the show began.

Reynolds gathered herself and moved right in. “Senator Hodges, these are very serious accusations that you face. People are saying that you were complicit in torture and massacres by Guatemalan death squads. Do you really believe that the American people should vote for you?”

The question was hard enough. But Reynolds tone was respectful. She smiled nervously, clearly a little intimidated with Hodges in front of her. Hodges nodded seriously.

“Katie,” he said. “I would never presume to tell the American people who they can or cannot vote for. Nor should you.”

It was a good strike back. Dee felt a little visceral thrill in her gut. She loved the cut and thrust of it, even when everything they worked for was on the line. Hodges did not give Reynolds a moment to say anything but ploughed straight into his standard defense.

“When I put on the uniform of the United States army I made a decision to serve my country. That was at the height of the Cold War, Katie. It was a different world. The very existence of this country was at stake. Tough choices were made and sometimes I was the one who made them.”

Reynolds opened her mouth to interject. She already felt she was losing control of this interview. But Hodges leaned into her and fixed her with his eyes. “I have never regretted a moment of wearing my country’s uniform,” he said.

Dee felt a wave of relief and exhilaration wash over her and she sighed. She knew now this was going to be okay. She knew it in her gut. The gut she trusted to guide her for the last thirty years. The same instincts that took her out of the godforsaken bayous of Louisiana and brought her here; at the right hand of the best political candidate she ever saw. She relaxed. Hodges was in full command of the show now. His line never wavered. Reynolds never succeeded in rattling him. He stood tall as the American soldier who kept his country safe. After all, Dee thought, would the average voter really care about the fates of a bunch of Guatemalan peasants twenty years ago? Not a chance.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out as she walked out of earshot of the studio. It was Roger Armstrong, a conservative-leaning columnist at the
Washington Post.
Dee had known him for years and he owed her numerous favors, both professional and personal. She rang him that morning to prime him on Hodges expected line of defense and drop subtle hints that a column defending Hodges would be a great boon for the candidate. Armstrong’s voice filled her ear and his rich Southern accent oozed out of the phone. Dee always bit her tongue when she spoke to him. He was born in Maryland and was about as Southern as a Maine lobster roll, but it suited his image and Dee was in no mind to nitpick.

“How’s it going, Roger?” Dee asked. “What do you think?”

“I think your man has been deeply impugned,” Armstrong said, lengthening the word
impugned
so that it rolled like treacle. But it was what Dee wanted to hear.

“You’re damn right,” she said, summoning genuine outrage. “What’s happening here is a national disgrace. It’s typical of the way we treat our soldiers these days.”

“Too true, Dee. Too true,” Armstrong said. “It’s a sad reflection of our modern age. But I, for one, am determined to stand against the unpatriotic tide. I will not let a fine servant of our nation be raked over the coals by a bunch of liberals who would rather burn the flag than wave it.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Dee said and fought down an urge to laugh at Armstrong’s pompousness. It was not like he ever joined the military himself. Typical chicken hawk.

“So can we expect to see your thoughts expressed in print?” Dee asked.

“You can, Dee. Keep up the good fight.”

Armstrong hung up and Dee smiled. There was a long road ahead of them and it would not be an easy one. But she at last could see a path. She walked back into the studio. The interview was over and Hodges and Christine stood together, their arms around each other’s waists, and chatted amiably with the main producer.

Dee watched them for a moment. She was actually happy. She even enjoyed these moments of crisis. It was when she was at the peak of her game. She thought about Mike and could not believe he did this to her. That he sought to sabotage everything they worked for. For what? Some misguided idea of principle. Did he think principles were best served by destroying their best chance for the White House and letting that fool currently in the Oval Office get a second term? Well, she needed to deal with Mike now. She promised to destroy him and Dee never broke promises. Never.

* * *

AS HODGES’ interview ended, Mike felt physically sick. His face was pale and sweaty as if he had a fever. His mother, perched on the arm of the couch, put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He was desperate for a shot of alcohol. It was a physical ache, like a gigantic hole opened inside his chest and he needed to pour something in it to fill it up.

“Hon, it wasn’t too bad. You’ve done the right thing. You stood up for what is right. That’s all that matters,” she said softly, her voice full of concern.

But Mike knew the interview went like a charm for Hodges. The talking heads were already on the television discussing the nature of patriotism and if the mainstream media was inherently anti-American. The details of the allegations against Hodges were lost in the miasma. They were too difficult to process, too obscure and too long ago. It was easier to frame the debate with domestic politics, not Guatemala’s bloody past, and Hodges’ interview played into that superbly. He cried out to the public to defend those who defended it and few pundits dared not follow that cry. He saw Dee’s cunning behind it all.

“Their strategy is going to work,” Mike said. “They’re going to get away with this.”

His mother shook her head. “The South Carolina election is nearly here, Michael. He’ll lose it. People will never vote for a man who did those things,” she said.

For a moment Mike wanted to scream that he knew better. That he worked inside this campaign and that no one ever lost an election on principles like that. He always despised the cynics before but now he knew he was one. Dee’s strategy was pitch-perfect. It appealed to the voters and the media alike. Suddenly, he needed to get away from the house. His mother would never understand. She led her life keeping strong to her belief in her community. But she was able to do that because she never left this god-awful dying town. She never tried to influence things beyond her home and her friends and people she knew. He tried to change the whole system. Now he realized just what sort of madness that was. He got up and flung on a jacket.

The cold air outside slapped him in the face like a spurned lover. His cheeks stung with the force of it. But he drew his jacket close around him and trudged down the streets heading for O’Rourke’s. Unlike the last time he had been there, with Sean and Jaynie, the grimy bar was virtually empty. So much had happened since that night of laughter and drunkenness that it felt like a lifetime ago. He sat in the darkness and ordered a bottle of beer and a chaser of bourbon. The only other customer was a scarecrow-like old man at the other end of the bar who stared myopically into space. His face drooped like a melted candle and the folds of his sunken cheeks hung like drapes around the windows of his eyes. A TV murmured dully in the corner and carried a debate show about Hodges’ recent interview. Mike looked in vain for the barman to get him to switch it off. The old man saw Mike look at the TV and called over.

“That boy Hodges really served our country,” he said with a determined glare. “It’s disgusting what they are doing to him. He was just doing his duty.”

Mike tried to smile but he could not. A feeling of dark horror crept up his throat and froze the expression on his face as a grimace and turned it into a mask for his despair.