Dark Horse

by Doug Richardson

  —At a news event covering the arrest of three school bus loads of illegal immigrants, McCann was there. “China has the Great Wall. And that old wall is great because it keeps out the unwanted and the unwashed.”

  —When TV cameras arrived at a textile plant closing, McCann was there to shake hands and give his two cents. “Where are these jobs going? South of the border, where pay is cheap and profits are big. What about these folks? What has NAFTA done for them but screw up next Christmas?”

  —Then there was more populist rhetoric at a rally protesting the closing of a Cathedral homeless shelter. “In my daddy’s day they were called bums and tramps. They’d show up at the door and offer work in exchange for food. But now we call ‘em homeless. I tell you, that’s a word engineered to make y’all feel sorry for ‘em. I say let’s change the language. Call ‘em what they are—tramps and bums again—then let’s see if the taxpayers wanna keep payin’ for it.”

  Hit and run.

  It always looked cheap. It most certainly sounded crackpot. Yet people would surely remember the name behind the sound bites. Shakespeare McCann.

  “What should we expect?”

  “Another spike in McCann’s name tracking. And your first big bump in negative numbers,” answered Fitz. “But that’d be up from zero. I’m only worried about the timing.”

  “What about the timing?”

  “It’s Thursday. If they had the check, a smart man would’ve dumped this on us Friday. We wouldn’t be able to counterpunch effectively till Monday. Marshall’s too smart for that, so something is up.”

  “But Marshall doesn’t sign the checks,” reminded Mitch. “Has anyone heard from La Croix? I’d love to hear what he has to say.”

  “Best I could find out was that he’s over in Africa, seeking peace and revelation.”

  Rene breezed in, handing off her statement to Mitch. He read it to himself. “It sounds careful.”

  “That’s you.” She smiled. “Counterpoint to reckless, which in a nutshell defines our opponent.”

  At nine o’clock on Friday morning, Mitch counterpunched, reading from a prepared statement. “The assertions by my opponent are reckless and careless. The support for my nomination has been broad, and with so many campaign contributions my underpaid campaign staff has had to sort through, it’s no wonder a single check was overlooked.”

  Mitch was reading the statement in front of the offices of the Cathedral City NAACP. Backed by a genial, racially mixed group of local supporters, Mitch trudged on. “I have never met or spoken to Jamal La Croix. And by no means do I agree with a single word of his angry politics. Martin Luther King said we will walk up the top of the hill, black and white, hand in hand. I truly believe in those words. Jamal La Croix does not.

  “If anything, I’m here to say thank you to the First Cathedral Bank employee who brought this simple error to my campaign’s attention. And to put an end to this matter, we are returning the contribution of one thousand dollars.”

  The front-runner didn’t take any questions and gave no impromptu answers. Instead he said thank you and was on his way to a calendar full of one-on-one interviews on the matter.

  “The high ground,” rumbled Fitz as he watched the press conference. “How long can it last?”

  TWO

  THE TEXAS facility where Shoop de Jarnot awaited word on his appeal was named after a former Texas corrections chief named Carlton C. Abbot. During Abbot’s twenty-year tenure, he’d built four prisons, leaving them as his legacy, and him with the moniker the “King of Corrections.” But the inmates at Carlton C. Abbot State Penitentiary had another word for the concrete stockade.

  El Rincón.

  One of the few seaside prisons in the country, it boasted ocean views and its own lighthouse on the jutting outcropping of land it stood upon. Prosecutors affectionately said of El Rincon, “It’s where the joint meets the point.”

  Shoop couldn’t afford a room with a view. Those were mostly reserved for trustees, cons who’d made deals, or those who’d had so much “good time” logged that it was either release the old boy or upgrade him to a scenic suite. But Shoop’s space was a single bunk, ten by five feet, built from cinder block with indoor plumbing. And since he was a prisoner with a pending death penalty appeal, he wasn’t allowed to mingle with the facility’s general population. Instead he spent all his hours in solitary confinement, except for the occasional infirmary visits for chronic sinusitis. There he would actually find conversations with various patients and nurses, a tonic he sorely missed when the infections would clear.

  Television was Shoop’s greatest comfort. It was monitored and rationed; the day for most of America’s incarcerated revolved around three square meals, brief respites of fresh air, and two sessions of TV—early prime, i.e., before dinner, and prime time, between seven and ten at night

  It was on the ten-o’clock news when Shoop first caught wind of Mitchell’s most recent tête-à-tête with the news media. On Thursday he’d watched excerpts from McCann’s news conference. And that Friday, Mitch’s rebuttal. He was thrilled catching his lawyer on the news.

  “Das my lawyuh,” Shoop would proudly point out to a guard named Tyler Tubbs.

  “Hate to burst your bubble,” sparked the guard, “but you ain’t gonna win him any votes from here.”

  “He da good man. Mitch Dutton.”

  “Sure he is.” Tyler nodded. “You finished with your tray?” Shoop slid his barely eaten dinner tray through the slot. “Hate to tell ya, Shoop. But starvin’ your Creole ass ain’t the best way to get yourself to the infirmary.”

  Shoop hated Texas and its love of barbecue sauce and everything chicken-fried. To him, they couldn’t cook without a flotilla of grease and some salty sauce to smother the flavor.

  “My lawyuh say dat dah food in dah Loosiana prison is much better.”

  “Still thinkin’ you’re gonna make it out, huh?” Tyler tried a fork-load of the stew. Not bad, said his expression.

  “I got mah hope.”

  “And what if you don’t?”

  “Den ah die.” It was that simple. Shoop was momentarily resigned to the either/or of the proposition. Prison had done that to him.

  “You trust this politician guy?” Tyler seemed more than just curious. A new swing guard, part-timing it between the correctional job and night school, he was a Louisiana native sidetracked to Texas by way of a failed pro-football career. Shoop shared nothing with Tyler other than a former common geography called Louisiana. “You really don’t wonder he’ll leave you hangin’?”

  “He won’. He mah lawyuh. He made me a promise.”

  “Yeah? So what kind of promise?”

  “Dat if dey kill me in Texas, dat he gonna see me back tah Loosiana and my momma.”

  “Even if he’s elected? He’s gonna leave Washington, D.C., and go to some killer’s funeral?”

  “Promise is ah promise.”

  “You crazy.”

  “Not me.”

  “Yeah, you. For one thing. You gonna trust some white man to deliver your dead black ass to your Creole momma. And two, this white man’s a politician.” Tyler gulped back what was left of the tripe stew. “Maybe they just wanna kill you cuzza you’re so dumb.”

  Connie Dutton no longer read newspapers. To her they were little more than a daily bundle of bad news on cheap, recycled paper. Not the best way to wake up, she thought. It was no wonder that she didn’t recognize the face of the man shaking hands with her husband in the picture that came over the fax machine on Saturday morning. She delivered it to Mitch at his usual postjogging perch. Kitchen table. Hunched over a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee in hand, with the newspaper spread out in front of him as if he were a lost tourist scouring the local road atlas.

  “Came over the fax for you.” She knew better than to wait for him to look up. She just slipped it under his nose.

  “Thanks, sweetie.” He took the fax, briefly set it aside as he finished an article by a Daily Mirror guest c
olumnist on the state of municipal bond funding throughout the Southwest. Only when he was done did he give the item a once-over. That’s when his blood went cold.

  Mitch Dutton and Jamal La Croix, warmly smiling, hands firmly clasped in union.

  “It’s a fake!” bellowed Mitch from his study. Fitz was at the other end of the phone. “Yes. That’s me. But I swear, that’s not Jamal La Croix. I have never shaken his hand!”

  “Then who the hell is it?”

  “Hell if I remember. There’s not enough detail in the picture.”

  “I knew it,” said Fitz. “I should’ve seen it coming.”

  “Seen this coming?”

  “The Thursday press conference. I couldn’t figure out why McCann did it Thursday instead of waiting until Friday.”

  “Because they wanted me to come out and say without equivocation that I’d never met Jamal La Croix.” Mitch was quick to catch on.

  “You got it.”

  The Call Waiting beeped. “Hang on, will ya?” He switched lines. “Hello?”

  “Mitch Dutton?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Kevin O’Sullivan from Channel Five.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now.”

  “I just want a statement.”

  “It’s a fake. That’s all I can say right now.” He switched lines back to Fitz. “Channel Five. The bastard must have had a field day faxing it to all the media this morning.”

  “How’d they get your home number?”

  “It’s a small town.” Then his line beeped again. “Shit.”

  “Don’t answer,” advised Fitz.

  “I have to. Connie just left to get her car serviced and I’m waiting to see if I have to pick her up.” The line beeped again. Mitch depressed the switch. “Hello?”

  “Mitch. It’s Hollice Waters. I’m on vacation in Colorado, but somebody just faxed me—”

  “It’s a fucking fake, Hollice. I’ve never met the guy.”

  “Can I quote you?”

  “On everything but the Goddamn expletive.”

  “If it’s a fake, then who did it?”

  “That’s your guess.”

  “So if it’s not La Croix in the picture, who’re you shaking hands with?”

  “I don’t know, Hollice. Now, I gotta go.” Mitch switched back to Fitz again. “Hollice Waters calling from his vacation, for Christ’s sake.” The phone beeped again,

  “Goddammit, don’t answer it.”

  But Mitch was already gone. “Hello?”

  “Mitch Dutton.”

  “Listen. I can’t talk right now.”

  “Mitch. It’s Wilson Pendercost.”

  Wilson Pendercost?

  The name struck Mitch funny. He’d heard of it. Had some good feelings from it. But he couldn’t place him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember…Help me out.”

  “I understand. It’s been a while since we’ve met. And it was only the one time,” said Wilson Pendercost. “I was the CCSD teacher of the year five years ago. That’s when you were on the school board. You presented me with the award.”

  Mitch’s mind slingshot backward. Then the face came to him. A smiling, friendly fellow with the kind of visage only great teachers achieve. Full of trust and love and patience. Wilson Pendercost had been honored with the Cathedral City School District Teacher of the Year award. Mitch was the master of ceremonies that night, handing out the award to the city’s best. Wilson Pendercost. Suddenly Mitch found himself looking at the faxed fake.

  “That’s me in the picture,” said Wilson. “Right after you gave me the award. Me shaking your hand.”

  “You’re right. That’s where I remember this.”

  “It’s a fake.”

  “Damn right it’s a fake,” said Mitch, putting a cork in his fury. “How’d you get it?”

  “My sister. Some type of fax chain letter.”

  “I expect all of South County must have seen it by now.”

  “Well, I have a copy of the original if you need it. You know. To debunk the faker.”

  “Where do you live?” asked Mitch.

  “I’m still on the mainland.”

  “Hang on, will you? I have someone on the other line who’s going to call you. His name is Fitz Kolatch.”

  “Okay. I’ll hold.”

  Mitch switched lines again. “Wilson Pendercost.”

  “Who?”

  “The man in the picture. He’s on the other line. He has the original.”

  “Okay. I wanna talk to him. But I want you on the phone to Rene. You’re gonna have to make another statement.”

  “The sooner the fucking better.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” reasoned Fitz. “I don’t want any hasty counterpunching. If McCann was behind this, we’ve been sandbagged good.”

  “It’s fraud, dammit.”

  “So was filing a false police report. But that’s the game you chose to play when you decided to run for office.”

  “Not this game, Fitz.”

  “Grow up, Mitch. You’re in it. I’m calling this guy Willy Pendergrass—”

  “Wilson Pendercost,” corrected Mitch.

  “Whatever,” said Fitz. “I’m calling him and then Marshall Lambeer. It’s time we made diplomatic contact with the other side.”

  Somehow Texas never felt like home to Marshall Lambeer. The sixty-four-year-old political warhorse hailed from Maine, and ever since moving to Cathedral thirty-one years earlier, he had tried to summer down east every other year. The odd summer, of course, was given to The Show, as he’d come to know it. Having managed twelve successive Hammond campaigns for reelection, he’d found barely a week or two to sneak away when it came to election years. Even with old Hurricane’s seemingly bulletproof incumbency, the job wasn’t exactly slack, requiring more than its share of shaking all the old hands and dressing up Hurricane’s status quo politics in the occasional new suit.

  Cathedral, though. Marshall never figured to stay. The bugs were too big and the tourists too tacky. From day one he’d planned to return to his native Maine, expecting the Hammond gig to someday end. But after thirty-one years, from when he was Hurricane’s thirty-three-year-old administrative assistant until the very day Hammond died on his Virginia farm, Marshall had stayed. For the kids, he’d often told himself. Three girls, all grown and through college, the youngest having graduated just last June. Marshall and his wife, Eleanor, were experiencing the twilight years. All the readable road signs told Marshall to quit, retire, move on!

  Go back to Maine.

  Yet in the scorching that came with July, Marshall found himself working for a candidate he hardly knew, let alone spoke to. At double his previous salary. Yes. Extra pocket change for the permanent retirement account. Nonetheless, Marshall felt somewhat less than sanguine about the chore. The surrounding faces were all the same. Good Republicans, all. Dedicated. Family folk. Except for one strange-looking guy who stood on top of Marshall’s campaign heap with an unfamiliar face that gave away little more than a trademark smile.

  But who in the name of God was he?

  The question plagued Marshall each and every night when he curled up against his wife and closed his eyes. To get to sleep, the old campaign mule would have to remind himself that Shakespeare had the state party endorsement or else they wouldn’t have funded that initial one hundred thousand. After all, Zig Ziegler, the state party chair, had given Shakespeare McCann the official thumbs-up. No explanation required. Marshall would later admit that he didn’t think enough to press Zig for details on the candidate. Maybe it was because of the money they’d given the campaign. Or maybe it was the eighty thousand that Shakespeare had promised Marshall, twenty thousand of which had already been deposited into Marshall’s account.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe .. .

  “Fitz Kolatch on six.”

  When Fitz’s call came through the McCann campaign office switchboard, Marshall had first thought to return the call later on, after he’d ascert
ained just where the faxed photo had materialized from. Instead, he had Fitz hold, got up from a crowded desk covered in scheduling markers, and walked the short, paneled corridor to Shake-speare’s office. He excused himself as he squeezed past a couple of volunteers blocking the hallway. Shakespeare had gathered himself a loyal and zealous flock. Buzzing minions devoted to the man who would be their congressman.

  Shakespeare had furnished his Strand office in the bare necessities and little else. A desk, a couch, a computer. No family photos or familiar memorabilia to give any clue to a past. And as usual, Marshall found Shakespeare seated on his desk, back to the door, staring upward at that bulletin board covered in that rainbow of three-by-five cards, each with a scribbled text that nobody but Shakespeare could understand.

  “Shakespeare,” started Marshall.

  “Marshall,” acknowledged Shakespeare without turning his head.

  He stood at the threshold, trying to find the right words. “I’ve got Fitz Kolatch on hold.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Not yet. I’m sure it’s going to be about this fax thing.”

  “So what’s to say? You don’t know where the picture came from. But you’re awful glad some good citizen thought well enough to distribute it.”

  “He’s a smart man. He’s gonna want to know if we had the picture before we made an issue of the check.”

  “That so?”

  “Yessir.”

  “And what’ll you say?”

  “That we didn’t have the picture.”

  “That’s good, Marshall.”

  “Did we?”

  “Did we what?” asked Shakespeare.

  “Did we have the picture?”

  Shakespeare finally turned with just enough shoulder so he could get a clear shot of Marshall. “Of course not.”

  “Because if we did, I’ll just pack it in. There’s sandbagging and then there’s—”