The Big Lie

by James Grippando

  “Consequences for whom, sir?”

  “The man on the moon,” MacLeod said, annoyed. “Come on, Oscar. Who puts forth the names of the Republican electors?”

  “The State Executive Committee of each party nominates a slate of electors.”

  “Who approves the names?”

  “Technically the voters do when they vote in the general election.”

  “No, before that. Who approves the slate as nominated by the parties?” It wasn’t really a question; MacLeod was driving home his point.

  “That would be the governor of Florida,” said Teague.

  “Exactly. So who’s responsible if one of those electors goes rogue?”

  Teague hesitated, clearly not ready to make the leap of logic that the president was suggesting. “I don’t think you can blame the governor for this, sir.”

  “Watch me. Get him on the phone.”

  Teague retrieved the number. MacLeod gazed out the window, waiting, as his campaign manager dialed. Ground Force One typically avoided major intersections, but as they crossed St. Charles Avenue the president was able to catch a glimpse of the sixty-foot fluted column at Lee Circle. It rose pointlessly from the grassy center of the busy roundabout, no cauldron or monument atop its Doric-style capital, a completely unadorned column with no apparent purpose but to hold up the sky. The sixteen-foot statue of Robert E. Lee that had once topped the column, carefully positioned so that Lee would forever look north toward the enemy, was among the Confederate monuments removed by the city before MacLeod’s first term.

  “Pretty sad day in America when one of the greatest generals who ever lived can’t have a statue in his home state.”

  Teague had the governor on hold. “Lee was from Virginia, sir.”

  “I knew that. Why would you think I didn’t know that?”

  Teague didn’t have a response, so flummoxed that he nearly disconnected the call as he put the Florida governor on speaker. MacLeod instinctively started talking in a southern accent, though not even the president was sure why.

  “Gov-nuh, how y’all doin’ down over there in Florida?”

  Governor Terry Mulvane was an Iraq War veteran and former congressman who’d earned the president’s endorsement in the Republican gubernatorial primary for being “tough on borders.” Once elected, he also proved to be tough on corporations that poured pollutants into the Florida Everglades, a position that put his status as MacLeod’s fair-haired boy in serious jeopardy.

  “Fine, sir. How are you?”

  “Not so good. I just watched the press conference for that traitor, Charlotte Holmes.”

  “I saw it as well.”

  “I’m very concerned about a domino effect. Stahl picks off one elector in Florida, and the next thing you know we lose another one in Ohio or Texas, and so on. They only need a handful to turn the election.”

  “I understand your concern, sir. We’re on it.”

  “I don’t want you to be ‘on it.’ I want you to fix it. These electors need to be made to understand that their actions have severe consequences—not only for themselves, but for all Republicans in their state. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I believe I do, sir.”

  “Good. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  MacLeod said goodbye, and the call was over. He looked across the table at his chief strategist, who’d heard it all on speaker. MacLeod was a big believer in the power of collective responsibility; he hated it when the liberal media pointed out that so were the Nazis.

  “There,” MacLeod said smugly. “Problem solved.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what you expect the governor to do.”

  “I expect him to get out of the way and let his attorney general do what she does best. Charlotte Holmes is no match for Paulette Barrow. Now, let’s you and me figure out how to hit back at Stahl,” he said, reaching for his cell.

  “Please don’t tweet,” said Teague.

  “You’re talking to the Twitter master.”

  “That’s what you said about ‘Sodom and Goliath.’”

  “I hate auto-correct,” he said, typing out another tweet. “Is the y capitalized in K-Y?”

  Teague groaned. “Sir, this is exactly what Senator Stahl wants you to do. They’re baiting you. The Democrats want you to say something so outrageous that it will push just enough Republican electors into his camp. Don’t bite.”

  To his own surprise, MacLeod found himself persuaded. He deleted the draft tweet, laid his cell phone aside, and gazed out the window, searching. “There’s a reason Stahl won’t tell us who his lover is—a reason he vanished into thin air the minute this scandal broke.”

  “We don’t know for sure it’s a ‘he.’”

  “Oh, bullshit. I don’t buy that crap about respecting the privacy of a woman who’s fighting to save her marriage. Stahl is hiding something.”

  “Even if you’re right, there isn’t a voter in America who hasn’t already heard the rumors. We worked that angle for two months on every available platform. I daresay we’ve milked the same-sex extramarital affair for all it’s worth.”

  “You’re dead wrong. It’s still an abstraction. We need to put a face on the gay lover.”

  “We’ve been searching for two months, sir.”

  “Look harder!” he said firmly, then reeled in his anger. “He’s out there. We didn’t come this far to lose in the Electoral College. Find him before December fourteenth.”

  Chapter 11

  Charlotte’s flight landed in Tallahassee at sunset. She wasn’t expecting a hero’s welcome, but she could have done without the angry protestors waiting for her at the airport.

  “Save us, Charlotte!” a man shouted sarcastically.

  “Please!” shouted another. “Save us from ourselves!”

  Security and other concerns permitted airports to restrict demonstrations in ways that would never fly, so to speak, at other public places, so the group that turned out against Charlotte was forced to stand behind a crowd-control barrier near the terminal exit. It was a tiny showing compared to her press conference earlier in the day, but Charlotte’s every movement was being recorded on smartphones, which meant that the jeers and jabs of a few would look and sound like a nationwide movement when the videos went viral on social media. Jack had warned Charlotte that her words might be twisted to fit the president’s conspiracy theories, so she wasn’t surprised to see the “Deep State” signs in the hands of some demonstrators. But one sign really hurt—even more so because it was brandished by a teenage girl.

  elitist bitch!

  The girl looked like any number of the friends and classmates Charlotte had grown up with in the Panhandle. In Florida’s sliver of the South, where shops closed on Sunday morning for church, where teenagers couldn’t help addressing a woman as “ma’am” even after she insisted that they stop doing it, the worst insult Charlotte could have imagined hurling at any woman was “elitist bitch.” It made her want to run over to that girl and scream, “How is it ‘elitist’ to vote for the candidate who won by five million votes?” But that was MacLeod’s political genius, the way he could label people and make it stick no matter what the facts were.

  “Mal-colm! Mal-colm! Mal-colm!” the demonstrators shouted.

  Charlotte hurried to the exit, thanking God that she had no checked baggage, no need to endure further abuse while waiting at the carousel.

  “Two-eleven Windermere Drive,” she told the taxi driver, and off she went.

  Charlotte drew a breath in the back seat, collecting herself, then checked her phone. The demonstration at the airport had been a love fest compared to the thrashing on the Internet. The headlines—“First Faithless Elector”—should have told her to avoid the mainstream media coverage of her press conference. She definitely shouldn’t have read the political blogs. Reading the mostly mean-spirited comments to the blogs was utter insanity. Twitter put her over the edge. She was trending. At least she assumed it was her: #ElitistBitch. Charl
otte had no idea how many thousands of people had to be tweeting at any point in time to elevate a hashtag to “trending” status. One was too many.

  “Which house again?” the driver asked, as he steered onto Charlotte’s street.

  Charlotte was still torturing herself, staring at her phone. “Straight ahead. Right at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

  “The one where all those people are?”

  Charlotte looked up from her phone and peered through the windshield. Dusk had turned to darkness during the ride from the airport. In the glow of the streetlamps, she saw what could only be described as a mob in the cul-de-sac, blocking the entrance to her driveway. It was at least double the size of the demonstration at the airport. The driver slowed the taxi to a crawl as they approached.

  “You a Kardashian?”

  “What? No.”

  A woman in the crowd pointed at the oncoming taxi, and even though Charlotte couldn’t hear her exact words, the mob sprang into action in a collective “There she is!”

  “You sure you want to get out here?” the driver asked.

  The crowd rushed the car, forcing the driver to stop. It was like the airport, except that this mob was louder and more profane. “Elitist bitch” had morphed into the C-word, which made her cringe.

  “Maybe you should come back later,” said the driver.

  Charlotte could hardly stand the idea of being chased away from her own home. But stepping out of the car would have been downright reckless, and calling the police would only have added gasoline to the flames. What these people clearly wanted was attention—except for the one standing by her mailbox, who was oddly calm, dressed in a camouflage jacket, the bill of a baseball cap casting a shadow over his face.

  “Go or stay, lady?” asked the driver.

  Charlotte glanced at the driver, then back at that guy by the mailbox, who seemed detached from the demonstration, as if there only to watch the crowd. Or her.

  “Yes, let’s go,” she said.

  Charlotte had unfinished business to deal with anyway. It was only six o’clock. Madeline Chisel would still be in her office.

  “Take me downtown. Toward the Capitol.”

  The driver threw the taxi into reverse, did a quick three-point turn, and sped away from the cul-de-sac, but not before a raw egg splattered across the back window.

  “Damn!” said the driver, accelerating even more.

  “I’ll pay for the car wash,” said Charlotte.

  “You sure you want to come back here tonight, ma’am?”

  Charlotte was wondering the same thing, which also triggered second thoughts about going to see her old mentor. But after all that Madeline Chisel had done for her, Charlotte owed her something. An explanation. An apology. An opportunity to tell her to rot in hell like the ingrate she was.

  They passed the Capitol and Charlotte directed the driver down the hill, to Madeline’s office. Charlotte made good on her promised car wash, adding another ten bucks to the fare. The taxi pulled away with the remnants of dried egg smeared across the rear window. Charlotte crossed the street, wheeling her carry-on bag behind her. The lights were on in Madeline’s office. Charlotte still had her key, but entering uninvited and sneaking up on a gun lobbyist was not a smart move. She rang the after-business-hours doorbell.

  Charlotte waited on the street side of the glass door. She could see inside. Everything looked the same as the day she’d left. Lobbying was a multimillion-dollar business in Florida. The most profitable firms were full service, a dozen or more lobbyists under one corporate umbrella who pitched on behalf of anyone who’d write a check, from health care to the gaming industry. Madeline sometimes branched out and lobbied for something other than guns, but only if that other client’s agenda was completely unrelated to or wholly aligned with the Second Amendment.

  Charlotte rang the bell a second time. Madeline emerged from the back office, spotted Charlotte on the other side of the glass, and stopped. The office may have looked the same, but clearly everything had changed. Madeline walked slowly toward the door and, a bit like a gunfighter at high noon, stopped at the glass to look at Charlotte. It struck Charlotte how little Madeline had changed in the decade she’d known her. Five feet tall and skinny as a rail, Madeline had a steeliness in her gaze that could melt a glacier.

  She turned the lock and let Charlotte in.

  “I packed up your things,” Madeline said without emotion. “Wait here. I’ll get them.”

  Charlotte waited as Madeline retreated to what used to be Charlotte’s office. She emerged with a cardboard bankers’ box filled with things left behind and handed it to Charlotte. A framed photograph of her and Madeline in happier times was at the top of the pile. It had been on Charlotte’s desk for nearly eight years.

  “I’m sorry, Madeline.”

  “Don’t be. I saw the change in you after Parkland.” She meant the South Florida high school shooting that had killed seventeen. “A person can’t do this work if she doesn’t have the passion. I knew it was only a matter of time before you left.”

  “I meant about today. Changing my vote.”

  “Oh, that,” she said, offering a hint of a smile. “Well, what can I say? It’s been a tough four years, trying to maintain my own credibility with my cause linked to a fool in the White House who doesn’t know an ammunition clip from his tie clip.”

  “So you’re okay with what I’m doing?”

  “Hell no, girl. I’m not about to stand by and let you hand the election to a man who will undo everything I’ve accomplished over the last forty years. I’ll play within the rules, like I always do, but rest assured: I didn’t teach you everything I know. You won’t beat the master.”

  Charlotte had seen Madeline in action. It was no idle threat. “Appreciate the warning.”

  “You’re welcome. Oh, wait. Your Glock,” she said, as she went to the gun safe behind the counter. “I took it from your desk and locked it up for you.”

  Charlotte normally kept it at her desk. A readily accessible handgun for all employees was Madeline’s standard office policy.

  “Thanks,” said Charlotte, taking it. The pistol was in a conceal-carry waistband holster, the way Charlotte normally stored it.

  “I’m guessing you’re not carrying if you came from the airport.”

  “I’m not,” said Charlotte.

  “I play by the rules, but I’d venture to say you’ve pissed off some people who don’t. You should carry at all times. I’m just sayin’.”

  Charlotte tucked the holstered weapon inside her waistband and clipped it to her belt. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chisel opened the door. Between the box of belongings from her office and the carry-on from her flight, Charlotte had her arms full. She wasn’t sure whether Madeline would have shaken her hand anyway.

  “Good luck, Charlotte. And one last piece of advice. I wouldn’t trust anyone if I were you. Not anyone.”

  It wasn’t clear if Madeline meant the Stahl campaign, Jack Swyteck, or someone else. Charlotte took it at face value. “I can take care of myself,” said Charlotte.

  “I know you can.”

  Charlotte stepped out onto the sidewalk, went to the curb, and called for a ride.

  Chapter 12

  Jack stopped for a beer in Coconut Grove on his way home from work.

  Once a Bohemian enclave for headshops and hippies, the Grove was a neighborhood struggling for identity, scarred by a decades-long war against development, gentrification, and the inevitable transition of bars and cafés to multimillion-dollar condos and high-end shopping. Cy’s Place was a remnant of the old Grove, a jazz club owned by Theo Knight, Jack’s best friend, bartender, therapist, confidant, and sometime investigator. Theo was a former client, a onetime gangbanger who easily could have ended up dead on the streets of Overtown or Liberty City. Instead, he landed on death row for a murder he didn’t commit. Jack literally saved his life. With his civil settlement from the state, Theo went on to open his own tave
rn—Sparky’s he’d called it, a play on words and double-barreled flip of the bird to “Old Sparky,” the nickname for the electric chair he’d avoided. Sparky’s had done well enough to get him a second bar. Of course Theo needed a second bar. After four years of living eight feet away from death, Theo developed a simple credo: “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

  Jack climbed onto the barstool and glanced at the television on the wall. “You ever watch anything but ESPN in this place?”

  Theo kept slicing lemons behind the bar, not even looking up. “Would you rather watch that shit-stream on AMATT Media?”

  “AT—what?”

  “A-M-A-T-T,” said Theo, laying his cutting knife aside. “Venezuela falling apart? So what. Children starving in the Congo? Eh, who cares? Let’s get straight to Twitter. We are AMATT Media. All MacLeod. All The Time.”

  Theo wiped the lemon juice from his fingers, grabbed the remote, and changed the channel. The news coverage was transitioning from Jack’s client, specifically, to the never-ending battle of Stahl vs. MacLeod, generally.

  “I actually did watch your press conference, if you’re wondering,” said Theo.

  “What did you think?”

  “One glass of truth serum, coming up,” said Theo, as he set up a draft in front of Jack.

  “What does that mean?”

  “A Tallahassee lobbyist fighting only for truth? Give me a break.”

  “You don’t think it rang true?”

  “That’s funny. Truly.”

  Jack could have kept the truth-true-truly string alive, but it would only have led to tequila shots, Timothy Leary, the four hundred different kinds of truth discernible only through LSD, and, ultimately, no resolution to the red-paint-on-a-red-rose paradox. Jack changed the subject.

  “You hear anything from Julia?”

  Julia Rodriguez was the beautiful Salvadoran woman who had captured Theo’s heart and then gone back to El Salvador. It was and wasn’t her choice. She and her teenage daughter had come to Miami fleeing domestic violence and gang-related crime. Their petition for asylum was denied under the new policy announced by the MacLeod administration. Jack was with Theo at the detention center when he’d “proposed” a solution by proposing marriage. Julia was hours away from a one-way flight to Central America, but she had one question: “Would you ask if I wasn’t about to be deported?” Theo had hesitated only for a moment, but it was a half second too long. He’d been miserable ever since.