by Lee Taylor
Max’s eyes crinkled in a surprising smile. “Hmm, so the brash little eleven-year-old rascal I remember hasn’t changed.” Before she could defend herself, he held up his hands. “By the way, Gia, that is a good thing. Indeed, I’m gratified that the brazen pre-teen has become the bold woman that we all hoped she would. So out with it, young woman, and no more false apologies. How can I help you?”
Gia sucked in a deep breath and blew it out in an audible sigh. To confirm that she wasn’t intimidated by him, she called him by his first name. “Much as I hate to admit it, Max, I may have made a serious error in judgment.”
“Hmm, in our business, Gia, if that’s true, it is a serious issue. We political geniuses rely on our judgment. It’s the currency of our profession. But describe your purported error of judgment, and we’ll see if it can be corrected.”
She sighed again. “I’ve always considered myself to be an excellent campaign manager. The one who makes all the decisions and is proved right again and again. I’ll admit I even went so far as to think of myself as a kingmaker. I thought I was that good. I spent nearly three years running campaigns in college for silly offices like class president or head of the drama club. For God’s sake, I even engineered the winners of the graduating class king and queen. But just when I thought I was ready to go for the big time, to a real honest-to-God election for the US Congress no less, I’m in danger of falling flat on my face.”
When Max nodded for her to continue, she leaned toward him, not hiding her passion. “You need to understand, I spent two years trying to find the dark horse candidate I could coach into a surprise runaway victory. A guy no one would suspect, a Beto O’Rourke lookalike, who could launch me into the big time.”
Gia was glad that when she admitted to her extraordinary hubris and shameless ambition, he simply asked, “Are you referring to that fresh-faced, preppy guy you’ve been shilling?”
Not surprised that Max knew who she was talking about given his voracious grasp of all things political, she admitted, “Yes, that’s the one. Aiden Martin Maxwell.” She laughed and put up her hands in defeat. “I know. You’re right. You can’t get any ‘preppier’ than Aiden. I concede I don’t know anyone who would think of him as a ‘breakaway’ candidate. But that was the point. I thought his innocence, his lack of experience was a blessing. It made it possible for me to mold him. Make him fit the district.” At Max’s raised eyebrow, she shook her head in defeat. “But even though I knew all the issues that will win in our district, they don’t seem to resonate when Aiden speaks to them. Even when he’s reading his lines exactly as I wrote them, they fall flat.”
She rose to her feet and started pacing the room. Dragging her hands through her mass of shoulder-length curls, making the disarray more appealing, if possible, she turned to Max, askance. “But dammit, now I’ve rehearsed him so many times, he’s beginning to sound like a robot, even less convincing, if possible.” She groaned. “God, I’m beginning to think I should let him run on the environment because that’s the one thing that he seems to know. He might even be able to talk about it somewhat convincingly.”
She stopped and turned to Max, silently beseeching him to understand what she didn’t understand and couldn’t explain. He regarded her seriously for a long moment and then said thoughtfully, “Hmm, you’re on-target. The issue is right for the times . . . but not out of his mouth.”
Gia stepped back in surprise. “Huh?”
Max held up his hand. “No, if anything, it’s too much him. It makes him look as shallow as he is. That it’s the only thing a neophyte politician, especially a privileged one, might know something about.”
Gia stared at him, then murmured, “God, Max, why didn’t I see that? At some level, that’s why I rejected the issue. It was expected, so unsurprising. And it would make his ignorance about every other issue glaringly obvious.” She groaned aloud. “Jesus God, what’s wrong with me? I’m so much smarter than this. For God’s sake, I’m a renowned political strategist!” She shook her head in dismay. “Why . . . why didn’t I figure that out?”
Max shrugged and pointed to her ring. “Think it could be that?”
Gia looked down, then slammed her hand behind her back and shook her head.
Max stopped her incipient blast and said softly, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Gia. Sometimes love can blind even a smart gal like you.”
Gia was fierce, brusque. “No! It . . . it’s not that.”
“Not what? Love?”
“No, I mean that isn’t the problem. Love isn’t an issue between me and Aiden—at least when it comes to politics.” She chose to ignore how that strange sentence had popped out of her mouth and instead tried to explain the issue to the frowning man. “It’s just that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to make Aiden fit. Jesus God, even Lyin’ Mike O’Brian is a better candidate.”
Max agreed. “Yes, he is. Which means that if your guy can’t convince the voters that he is their man, you have only one option. You’re going to have to convince them that Lyin’ Mike O’Brian isn’t either. And that between losers, Aiden is the less objectionable.”
“Jesus, Max, that’s quite a statement. Sums up what a fucking mess I’m in.” Rather than apologize for her expletives, Gia took his sly smile as permission to speak her mind like she always did. She appealed to him, “But how? How can I go after someone like Mike? Heck, even I like him.”
“What do you like about him?”
She shrugged. “He’s genuine. And he fits the voters. He doesn’t talk down to them. He doesn’t apologize. He’s honest about who he is.”
“Hmm, I’m not so sure of that, Gia. Perhaps in contrast to your guy, he is.” He paused as though to let that surprising conclusion sink in, then added, “What else do you think you know about Mike?”
“Well, he is a man’s man.”
“Yes, he is that. But I thought this was going to be the year of the woman.”
Gia laughed. “Sorry, Max, I can’t put women’s issues in Aiden’s mouth. He’d just come across as preppier, more elitist. Every mother will love him and think that in a decade or so the nice young man might even be ready for primetime. God, it would make him the epitome of a metrosexual ‘wannabe,’ which would kill him with both men and women.”
Max shared in her laughter, then eyed her thoughtfully. “Which means that we will need to come up with something that will not only make Lyin’ Mike unacceptable to women but also to a good many men.”
“Like what?”
“How about that he hangs with prostitutes, make that teenaged streetwalkers.”
Gia backed up in surprise, then shook her head. “Even if we could prove that, haven’t we reached the point in our politics that disgusting behavior doesn’t matter anymore?” She hesitated, then asked carefully, “Unless . . . we could prove that the girls were underage . . . ”
Max grimaced. “No, I don’t think even Mike would go there, but how about if you can prove that he paid twenty-five thousand to expunge his arrest record? Make that his arrest records, plural.”
When Gia couldn’t hold back a gasp, he pursed his lips and pinned her with a hard gaze. “And . . . if you could further prove that he ‘borrowed’ city funds to pay that illegal bribe?”
Gia was truly speechless. Gathering herself, she managed to squeak out, “How can I possibly prove that?”
Max put up his hands as if in defeat. “I guess you’d have to talk to the man who has that proof sealed in his personal lockbox. The best I can suggest is that you skedaddle over to the Allendale state prison and see if you can convince him to give it to you.”
Chapter 5
Why, Dad? Why did you hold out on me? Goddammit, why? How could you have the fucking key to bring down our opponent and not tell me? How dare you betray me like that?”
Bart Tremaine stepped back, but given Max Sheldon’s certain heads-up that she’d left him loaded for a hell of a lot more than bear, he apparently determined that dissembling wasn’t g
oing to cut it.
“To tell you the truth, Gia, I didn’t know if I wanted to waste one of my most powerful chits on that guy of yours. I’ve told you, baby girl, that pretentious prick isn’t worthy of you. I don’t like you wasting your talents on that unworthy prepster. Besides, I don’t recall you asking if you could use my A-list. You must know that no one, not even me, approaches Max Sheldon unless it’s an emergency. Even then, you better know what you’re asking . . . ”
“Stop it, Dad! Dammit, don’t say another word. Admit it. You didn’t want me to win.”
Her father frowned, then shrugged and glared at her. “All right, little girl, I will admit it. It’s not that I didn’t want you to win; I didn’t want that fresh-faced fucker to win. I’m telling you, Gia girl, that little prick isn’t worthy of you. Not as a candidate and sure as hell not as your husband. I’ve gotta tell you—”
Gia did everything she could to tamp down her fury, knowing that she looked and sounded as unbalanced as she felt. But it was impossible to keep her anger from spilling over. Glaring at her father, she put up her hand, stopping him. “Be quiet, Dad, don’t say another word. Do you hear me? I don’t know if I will ever speak to you again, so I may as well say everything I feel and now know is true. This isn’t about Aiden. You’ve made it clear that you don’t give a flying fuck about him. You didn’t want me to win because you’re afraid I might be successful without you. I might even be successful running a fucking honest campaign. Imagine that, Dad. Big Bart’s sassy little girl might be a better campaigner than her crooked father.”
Seeing his frown deepen, Gia couldn’t stop the words that apparently had been seething in her gut for too long to hold them back now. “Imagine that, Dad. Big Bart’s little princess could actually get an honorable man elected. Not a crooked pol who never ran a race in which he didn’t cheat. Damn you. Because you got caught and they sent you to prison, you want me to be as big a loser as you are? What’s next, Dad? You want to show me how to cook the books so I can end up in a cell beside you? Is that your end goal?”
Not bothering to swipe at the tears sheeting down her cheeks, Gia forced herself to choke back her sobs, determined to say the words that been closer to the surface for longer than she’d realized. “I’m done, Dad. My whole life I ignored what you were. I made excuses for you. I thought I’d die when you went to prison. No more. I won’t spend another minute agonizing over your fate.” She glared at him. “Rather, I’ll revel in it. I’ll be eternally grateful that you’ve ended up exactly where you belong. I just hope they will call me to testify when you try and convince the state that you’ve repented of your illegal ways. At that time I will beg them not to reduce your sentence, rather that if there is a God worth praying to, you will fucking die in this prison.”
Gia didn’t know how she made it out of the visitor’s cell blinded by her tears and even more so by her righteous anger.
The next day, a package without a return address was delivered to her apartment. Ripping it open, she ploughed through the photocopies documenting Mike O’Brian’s arrest records and the evidence that it had been expunged. The nail in the benighted man’s coffin was the copy of a check Mike had written for twenty-five thousand dollars. Amazingly, the check was a city check signed by Michael K. O’Brian, Chairman, Parks and Playground Department.
****
“You can’t be serious, Gia. You can’t honestly think that I can accuse Mike O’Brian of stealing twenty-five thousand dollars from the city? And get away with it?”
Gia shrugged. “Granted, Aiden, it will require more than a ripping set of balls to pull it off, particularly when you prove that he used it to expunge his arrest records for prostitution.”
White-faced, Aiden turned to Ben Knight, Gia’s assistant campaign manager, and pleaded, “Jesus, Ben, help me out. Surely you know that this could be the kiss of death for me. What if it’s a hoax? That someone is trying to make me look like a bigger loser than I already am?”
Gia shared a knowing glance with her assistant and best friend. She managed to squash her grin confirming that she and Ben already both thought the horrified young man was a guaranteed loser. Especially if they didn’t light the dynamite that had been dropped in their laps.
Ben shrugged and said sympathetically, “Yeah, buddy, I can see why this might freak you out. If I’ve ever seen a campaign-ender, it’s this.” He pointed to the damning photocopies nestled against a stack of photographs of Mike O’Brian with decidedly unwholesome-looking women of every imaginable race and age. The one feature they shared was their profession, glaringly confirmed by their accompanying arrest records.
Aiden was fierce. “Listen, both of you. Unless you are willing to tell me that you can unequivocally prove that these documents are real, I won’t touch this. Actually, even if you can somehow prove they’re legitimate, I refuse to use them. Good God, Gia, can you imagine what my mother would say? Even my father would be horrified. For me to bring up such salacious ‘evidence’ is just so . . . so unbecoming.”
Gia quirked a dismissive brow and didn’t bother to tell him that horrifying his parents was one of the sweetest elements of the salacious attack she was planning. She hadn’t told anyone, even Ben, where she got the materials. Frankly, she didn’t want to admit that her father was helping her. She knew that if anyone knew Big Bart was in the picture, it could distort the focus of the attack. As always, Big Bart would soak up every bit of the oxygen, something Gia wasn’t going to let happen. This time, she was in the driver’s seat. In the back of her mind, she admitted that it never occurred to her that her father’s evidence might be false. Twenty-five years of apprenticeship at his knee had taught her that if he said something was gold, it was. It was as simple as that.
She blew out a hard sigh and conceded that her innocent as the driven snow candidate had reason to be appalled, frankly terrified. If, in some hideous way, the documents proved to be false, Aiden Maxwell would be even more of a loser than he already was. In addition, he’d be a joke, which she knew would be an even bigger blow to his pretentious parents. But she knew the evidence was real. Not only did it have her father’s backing, but Max Sheldon’s imprimatur had sealed the deal.
“Look, Aiden, Ben’s right and so are you. This is hardcore, down-and-dirty politics. Hardly the race you thought you would be running. I’m just going to tell you that every one of these documents is real, and the evidence against Mike O’Brian is ironclad. And just so the three of us are clear, we are going to use this evidence. Moreover, we—make that I—am going to create a masterful net. When we wrap it tighter and tighter around Mike’s neck, not to mention his dick, he won’t be able to do anything but slither away, never to be heard from again. Damn, I’ll bet that Granger will even bar him from the HT&M for behavior unbecoming even to a tried-and-true Irish pol.”
When Aiden shook his head and prepared to argue, Gia pinned him with a hard glare. “Listen, Aiden, and hear me well. First, we are going to use this evidence. Second, I promise you on my grandmother’s grave that the evidence is real and will not come back to bite us on the ass. Finally, I’m developing the script for how we are going to release it. And yes, you will need to be the one who makes it public. You are the one running for Congress, after all. But I promise you, when I’m done rehearsing you, Aiden Maxwell will be hailed as the freshest and most honorable newcomer on the national political stage.”
Gia didn’t underestimate the challenges she faced. To date, Aiden had proved himself to be a terrible candidate. Even with her practically speaking his lines for him, he couldn’t seem to rise to the occasion. But she was determined that this time he was going to shine if she had to hold him on her lap and, like the skilled ventriloquist she was, make the words spill out of his mouth. Mike and his team had made Aiden out to be a preppy nobody, running on his daddy’s money. Gia’s formidable goal, that had so far failed, was to position him as a clean, upstanding young man who deserved to win. As she planned her high-wire strategy, it was hard
to ignore that their opponent, Mike O’Brian, could be a spitting image of her father. Which made his downfall at her hands an even sweeter prospect.
****
Two weeks later, after a barrage of midnight rehearsals that had even wearied Gia and brought Aiden close to the breaking point, the night for the much-heralded televised debate arrived. Gia admitted she was anxious, for good reason. Aiden was about as far out of his comfort zone as he could get without crashing completely. When he, pale faced and sweating, tentatively walked onto the stage and grasped the podium as if he needed it to stay standing, she knew her angst was justified. In contrast, Mike O’Brian sauntered on to the stage. He was the epitome of a good ole boy, practically winking at the audience, promising that if nothing else, he’d make the evening entertaining.
A week earlier, Gia had sent one of her favorite reporters a tip backed with names. She suggested that Tyler Gunderson might want to interview a number of Center Street’s working girls about their association with Mike O’Brian. Like the legitimate reporter he was, Tyler thoroughly researched the potentially blockbuster story and finally went with it. At first it looked like Lyin’ O’Brian was going to be badly hurt, but in time, the supposedly race-ending evidence became an also-ran. Mike handled it like the pro that he was. He quickly admitted to being a sinner, and with the support of his parish priest, who confirmed that Mike O’Brian was a weekly visitor to his church, Mike begged for forgiveness. He brazenly observed that if God could forgive him for his shortcomings, surely his friends and neighbors would.
As the debate began, Gia took a deep breath when Mike skillfully brought up his shame before Aiden could. Appealing to the audience for support, Mike quoted John 8:7. “As my momma always said, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone.’ ”