The Governor's Lady (24 page)

“I’m most grateful,” she said, and nodded to Grace, who jabbed a finger to cut off the call.

Grace’s eyes snapped. “Miz
Lanier
. That asshole!” She caught herself, mortified. “Sorry.”

Cooper smiled. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

She called Roger’s cell phone. Still at home. The SUV that had brought him was slued sideways in his driveway, jammed against a bank of snow. Two state troopers were digging it out.

“All right, Roger,” she said. “Get there when you can. But tell me what you know.”

“It’s, ah, well, I haven’t been there for a couple of hours, but I think the situation’s all right.”

“I just talked to Colonel Doster, and frankly, Roger, it appears to me that the expert staff at the command center doesn’t know what’s going on, or if they do, they have their thumbs up their butts.”

She heard Roger suck in a long breath.

“When you get there,” she said, “size things up and call me with the absolute unvarnished truth. Understand?”

He paused, then clipped his words briskly: “Yes, Cooper. I understand.”

“It’s
Governor
.”

Atlanta, too, had snow. She called Allison’s cell phone. Several rings, then finally voice mail: “This is Allison. Try me again sometime.”

Cooper dialed again. Again, voice mail.

“Allison, call me. Let me know you’re all right.”

She waited. Nothing. She called again. This time, after several rings, Allison answered.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay.”

“Where are you?”

“In my apartment. I’m snowed in. Thank God, I’m snowed in.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Of course I worry about you. Now, what’s going on, honey?”

“I’m being quiet, trying to keep my head down, trying to be halfway normal, hoping nobody knows who I am, and now my picture is all over the TV and newspaper.”

“What?”

“Your inauguration, remember? Now, everybody knows. I’ve got”—her voice quavered—“reporters calling me. How they got my cell-phone number, I don’t know. But they want to interview me, Mom. They want to ask me questions about Dad, and you, and me. They want to write about me, take pictures, put me on display, and ruin it all.”

“Honey, I’m sorry.”

“I hate it, Mom. I just hate it.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes,” she insisted, “I do. I’ve been there. Now listen, don’t answer the phone unless it’s a caller you recognize and want to talk to. Because of the snow, people are going to be busy with other things. Just stay where you are, take a deep breath, be quiet. I’m going to arrange another phone for you, something with a secure number. And once we get past the next couple of days, we’ll talk about what we can do to take the pressure off. I’m sure the school will help. We can’t shut out the world entirely, but we’ll try to make things easier. I’ll do my best.”

After a long silence, Allison’s small voice: “Okay.” Then: “Are you all right, Mom?”

“I’ve got my ass hanging off a limb, and some folks with chain saws are circling the tree. But some others are bringing a ladder.”

“What?”

“I’m okay. Just take care of yourself. I’ll call you later. I love you, Allison.”

She hesitated, then: “Me, too.”

Six-thirty. Roger called, and this time he didn’t sugarcoat anything: The command center was a chaotic mess, fingers pointing, people squabbling over who was in charge, nothing much getting done. General Burgaw, the head of the National Guard, was hamstrung because he had no authority to act and was in a high state of outrage because of it. Colonel Doster was trying to send his troopers galloping off in all directions, without success, because most of their vehicles were useless in the snow. Calls were pouring in from local officials screaming for help and getting excuses.

When he was finished, she said, “You’re a good man, Roger, and I’m going to see that you get rewarded for your work.”

She called Pickett’s cell phone. Plato answered. “Give the phone to Pickett,” she said.

In a minute or so, Pickett came on, voice scratchy and full of irritation. “What’s the matter?”

“Have you talked to Roger or Colonel Doster?”

“For God’s sake, do you know what time it is? I’ve had about three hours of sleep. And I’m catching a cold.”

“So,” she said, “you don’t know what’s going on down here.”

“What do you mean?”

“A cluster fuck.”

“A
what
?”

“We’ve got a catastrophe, Pickett, and you screwed up.”

His voice rose an octave. “Cooper, what in the hell are you talking about?”

She told him. He listened without interrupting.

When she finished, he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then: “God
damn
.”

She could imagine what it must be like for him there in the dark cold of a South Carolina morning, on the edge of exhaustion, loathing nasty surprises as he did, feeling the ground shifting under him. She could imagine, but she damn sure didn’t sympathize.

“You said last night Doster was the only one who knew about the National Guard business,” she said. “In hindsight, it was a big, whopping mistake, not calling out the Guard, getting everybody in place.”

“Goddammit,” he rasped, “don’t fuss at me, Cooper. I don’t need that shit at six-thirty—”

“The kind of mistake a brand-new, wet-behind-the-ears governor would make.”

It took him a moment. “What?”

“If Pickett Lanier were on the job, he’d never mess up like that. But it’s not Pickett, it’s his wife, who’s going through on-the-job training.” She let him absorb that and went on. “So his wife, the trainee, is willing to throw herself on her sword, admit her mistake, take the heat.”

“It won’t work,” he said. “I’ll catch shit anyway.”

“Maybe, but here’s the other part, Pickett. Felicia Withers is saying you pulled off the biggest scam in the state’s history and got your wife elected governor, but she’s nothing but a stand-in, and you’re still pulling the strings. If that’s true, you
are
responsible, it
is
your screwup. But if I take the heat, say that I blew this all by myself, that says Felicia got it wrong. It gives you deniability. ‘Look, folks, she’s on her own. I’m just out here trying to be president.’ ” She could almost hear his brain humming, digesting and spitting out political ones and zeroes. She bore in on him. “You better damn well hope it works, Pickett. You better hope I can cover for you on this, because if I can’t, you might as well come home and take up gardening.”

“Can I call you back?”

“I’ll give you five minutes.”

He was back in four, voice even raspier, but calm now. And hopeful. “I’ll get Plato to call Doster and Burgaw.”

“But that’s not all.”

A long, deadly pause. “What else?”

“I’m not just bailing your ass out, Pickett, I’m horse-trading. I take the heat, you get your hands off the steering wheel. Back off and take the Posse with you.”

“Goddamn, are you crazy? There’s too much at stake. You can’t handle it. You have no idea what you’re doing. You’ll fuck it up, and that’ll fuck me up.”

“Or,” she said, “we can kick it up another notch. If we were to have a public pissing match about whether I’m going to do the job …”

“You wouldn’t do that,” he croaked. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, if you want to take the risk.”

His voice rose a plaintive octave. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you being bull-headed and unreasonable? We have a deal, Cooper. You understood from the get-go.”

“I understood I would help you run for president. I wouldn’t say anything controversial or do anything that would hurt your chances. I didn’t say I’d let you and the Posse micromanage by long distance.
You’ll
fuck it up. As you did last night. So I’m keeping my end of the bargain. I’m helping you. Look, Pickett, I don’t kid myself, you know a lot that I don’t. I’m willing to listen and learn and take advice. But I won’t let you humiliate me.”

In the long, empty space that followed, she knew she had won, at least for the moment. Pickett never, ever played his whole hand. He had an exquisite knack for knowing when to cut his losses, put the best face on things, save something for the next round.

“Yes,” he said wearily. “Goddamn. All right.”

“Good. Now, you and Plato get the word out, and then tell Plato to call and give me your collective wisdom on what I might do about this mess we’re dealing with.” She started to hang up but then decided she had something else she needed to say. “Pickett, you lied. You thought you could finesse me just like you do so many other people. But did you give the least thought to what might happen when I finally figured it out?”

A long silence, then: “Goddammit, I told her this wouldn’t work.”

I told her …
She knew instantly and exactly what he was talking about.

“Where will you be tomorrow?”

“Des Moines,” he said.

“Good airport in Des Moines?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Roger will be flying to Des Moines tomorrow to join your campaign.”

“Cooper—”

“I have a new chief of staff.”

“What? Who?”

“Wheeler Kincaid.”

FIFTEEN

She called Purvis Redmond, the Governor’s Office legal advisor. He reported that he was huddled in the cold and dark of his home, swaddled in blankets.

“That’s okay,” she said. “What I need, you can give me by phone—an order mobilizing the National Guard.”

In the long silence, she thought she could hear him squirming. “Nervous Purvis,” Pickett’s Posse called him. That was one, reason he had been left behind when they galloped off to save the world.

“I thought …”

“Purvis,” she said calmly, “you can either help me do my job, or I can find somebody who will. Are we clear on that?”

He hung fire for a moment. “All right.”

“As my legal advisor, tell me if I have sole authority to mobilize the National Guard.”

“You do.”

“Fine. Now, tell me how.”

“It’s pretty simple. Do you have somebody who can take it down?”

“I have pen and paper,” she said.

When she had it, she called the command center and asked for General Burgaw, the adjutant general, head of the National Guard. “General, I have in my hand the authorization for you and your folks to get moving. You are all now officially on duty.”

“About goddamn time,” he barked.

“I agree.”

“This other bunch here has their thumbs up their asses and their vehicles in the ditch. If you hadn’t called, I was about to put my people to work and damn the consequences, because we’ve got to—”

“Shit or get off the pot.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s the honest truth.”

“So you can tell that other bunch that you and I have had a meeting of the minds, and that you are mobilized.”

“Thank you, Governor.”