Sounding the Waters

by James Glickman

  She lowers her head for a second, then raises it and looks me straight in the eye. “You’re right. The funny thing is, I’m not even so bothered on Bobby’s behalf. It’s you that bothers me. I thought I knew you.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  She shakes her head. “This is about the last thing I figured you would get involved in.”

  “Cindy, nothing happened. Laura came over. We talked it all out. She went back to work. Period.”

  “That’s pretty hard to believe.”

  “I know it is. Why do you think we’ve been trying to intercept this?”

  “Why did you have her come over?”

  “This isn’t the time to go into all this. We both have work to do. I wasn’t drunk, if that is what you’re thinking.” Tension is growing in the pit of my stomach. I am supposed to be upstairs to take over for Laura. “She was my first love,” I say. “Everyone has weak spots.”

  She looks at me oddly and for a long moment, something like sadness in her eyes. “Yes,” she says finally. “I suppose they do.”

  She starts to divide the mail in front of her into piles. I notice that the phone receiver is off its cradle. I replace it but decide to head directly to Bobby’s eighth-floor suite myself.

  “Bye,” I say. “Thank you for the help. I’ll be in Bobby’s room.”

  Cindy doesn’t look up.

  Sickened by the tape’s appearance, and regretful and embarrassed that Cindy has heard it, I step into an open elevator. I am subjected to eight agonizingly slow floors’ worth of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” As the doors slide open, in front of me Laura and a staff assistant are waiting to get on.

  “Well, it’s you,” she says. “I was just coming to get you. Cindy’s phone was busy.”

  “I know. Sorry.” I have the tape of her and me in my suit coat pocket. I find I am fingering it nervously, as if it might grow legs and crawl out if I don’t hold on to it. I think about taking it out and saying something to Laura—“Here it is, we got it”—but I wonder if it is the proper time. It will do nothing except alarm her just when she no doubt wants to concentrate on and relax for the speech she plans to give. With the assistant there, we can’t talk directly in any case. I decide the news of the tape should wait until she returns.

  “How is Bobby doing?” I ask.

  “A little better. The aspirin is helping.”

  “Is he still going to rehearse this afternoon?”

  “Says he plans to. And he p-plans to go to Governor Roberts’ fund-raiser tonight. You know him. And he implored me to give my speech.”

  My heart begins to pound. “Is anyone with him now?”

  “Scott Bayer and a few of his people.”

  I glance uneasily at the staff assistant who is holding the elevator doors open and look back at Laura. “I hope Scott won’t let anyone bother Bobby. With any phone calls.”

  “I told him specifically not to. But I couldn’t get hold of you, and”—she looks at her watch—“I’m running late already.”

  “Okay, bye. Good luck.” She and the assistant get on the elevator. I hold up a hand.

  As soon as the doors close, I turn and run down the hall.

  Scott is running a tape of the last debate, punching at the VCR remote-control paddle to speed it up and slow it down. He is talking to one of his assistants, pointing at the screen. “There. Right there,” he says. “See where Bobby turns his hands up? Watch for that. Remind him. Very important. Tell him palms down, fingers spread.” He slices the air to illustrate another gesture. “And whatever you do, don’t let him go beyond ninety degrees. Not when he’s making a point.”

  I look around. “Bobby here?”

  “Bed rest,” he says, nodding toward the closed bedroom door. “Doctor Laura’s orders.”

  “Good,” I say, breathing a long, relieved sigh. I lean against the doorjamb. “Gearing up?” I ask.

  He glances up from the TV screen. “Hey, Ben. Come here, look at this.” I walk over. He runs the tape on fast-forward and the two candidates fall silent and begin to move like small frantic animals. “Watch Wheatley.” He presses play. “The harder he attacks, the folksier he makes his voice.” We listen to Wheatley discuss the free-spending, criminal-coddling, quota-mongering, pornography-loving, tax-raising, flag-desecrating habits of Bobby and his party. Scott drawls, “Well, Bobby’s goin’ give Mistah Wheatley a taste from ’at same ole bucket.”

  “Good strategy. But bad accent. No one loses r’s around here. We add them. As in George Warshington. Speaking of whom, is Bobby asleep?”

  “Resting, at least.”

  “Phone unplugged, I hope?”

  “He’s using it at the moment.”

  “Oh? Who’s he calling now?”

  “He got this one. His daughter, to wish him luck. I decided to let that one through. As soon as he’s off, he’ll be on pure R and R. Rest and rehearsal.”

  “Annie called to wish him luck?” I repeat, my heart pounding anew. “Why would she do that? She’s due up here tonight.”

  Scott shrugs, presses fast-forward.

  I go up to Bobby’s door and listen, waiting to hear his voice. I grit my teeth, thinking, Let it be Annie. Please. There is silence on the other side of the door. I knock lightly. No answer. I crack the door open. Bobby is on the phone, sitting on the bed, his back to me, his shoulders slumped and head down, listening. I see his face reflected in the bureau mirror across the room and I know it is not Annie. He is pale, breathing heavily through his mouth, a man about to be sick to his stomach. He blinks, keeps his eyes closed a few seconds before reopening them, then straightens just enough to glance in the mirror. He stares at himself for a moment and then at me, looking at both his reflection and me blankly and without a flicker of recognition, as if what he sees is all part of some hallucination he is having. Then his face flushes darkly, his eyes focus, and he hangs up the phone.

  “How long has this been going on?” His voice, quiet, is on the verge of breaking.

  “It’s not going on. It never happened. Nothing happened.”

  He nods. “How long?”

  I step inside and close the door and step toward him. “Bobby. She came over. We hugged once and we immediately decided it was all wrong. We didn’t even kiss each other.”

  “When was this?”

  “Right after I got back from seeing Kurt and Allan.”

  He nods again. His right hand balls into a fist, opens, balls up once more. “You must really hate me.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He stares at me in disbelief. A look I can only describe as murderous passes over his face. Then he nods again, as if he understands everything, or just by nodding can make himself understand everything. “So you must be the one who’s been spilling secrets to Wheatley.”

  “No. Bobby? Bobby. Have you heard what I’ve been saying? Nothing happened between Laura and me. And the fact that you listened to a tapped conversation should tell you where all the leaks came from.”

  “‘I’m so glad I came over,’” he says in an ardent whisper.

  “We talked. About you.”

  “That’s touching.”

  I look straight at him and am silent until he looks back. “I swear to you on my daughter’s memory that nothing sexual happened between us.”

  He blinks. His hand slowly unclenches. He looks at me for a second, and his eyes narrow. “Never?”

  Given the lies I have told and offered to tell these last weeks, I suppose I deserve the cross-examination. “Not since she and I broke up in college.”

  He lowers his head and shakes it. “What the hell happened?”

  “She flirted and I was susceptible.”

  “Obviously,” he says and shoots me an impatient look.

  “I tried to warn you
,” I say.

  He’s brought up short. “Warn me? What do you mean?”

  “Way back in the beginning of the campaign. I drove out to that Rotary speech you gave, and I told you point-blank you needed to talk to Laura. Immediately. You said it’d have to wait until after the election. Remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s starving to death out there.” He gets a look of pain mixed with disgust and I add, “And I don’t mean sexually.”

  “So like a true friend, you thought you’d help. Help yourself to my wife.”

  Out of nowhere, and to my complete surprise, I am angry. “All right. I’m not a fucking saint.”

  He takes a few steps toward me, and I stiffen, waiting for the punch. He stops in front of me, both fists clenched. “And you’ve been following me around these last weeks so I wouldn’t hear this. Haven’t you?”

  I nod.

  He shakes his head. “What a friend.”

  “I’ve tried to be.”

  “Spare me.”

  “Bobby, it takes three people for a situation like this to develop. If you had been there for her, this never would have happened.”

  He runs his hands through his hair. “You just don’t understand something. And Laura doesn’t either, though I’ve tried to tell her. Running for office is not an ego thing. All I want is for my life to be of service, and this is the way I know how to try to do the most good for the most people. I’m not a doctor like Laura or a talented attorney like you. Running for office is what I’ve taught myself how to do. And if I shut other things out, it’s because for me there are times when this work requires total concentration. I don’t know how to do it any other way. I wish I did. But running for office isn’t about making myself look good. It’s about trying to do some good. What I do in a campaign isn’t personal. It’s a business. I’m the product. And I try to run the business competitively and ethically. That’s all.”

  “But what about Laura? And Annie and Jimmy?”

  “I do the best I can. I spend more time with them than my father was ever able to spend with my mother and Jeannie and me.”

  “Just because what you do isn’t personal doesn’t mean it isn’t egocentric. Laura still has to defer all her needs for your cause. It’s a good cause, don’t get me wrong. But it’s an expensive one.”

  He points to a thick briefing book. “Okay,” he says softly. “I’m sorry. I just don’t have time to go into all this right now. I’d like to know one thing, though.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “Why didn’t Laura come tell me about this herself? Or you? Why do I have to hear it on a tape?”

  “We were waiting until after the debate.”

  He looks at me, astonished. “What?”

  “We didn’t want you to be forced to break your concentration.”

  He laughs bitterly. “The cause goes first?”

  “Well, you’re pushing a great product.”

  He masters himself with an obvious effort. I wonder if it is finally sinking in that his family is not the rock he needs it to be or imagined it was. Or his oldest friend. “Right. I think it’s time for you to go.”

  “Look, Bobby, I’m sorry the news came out this way. We did everything we possibly could to—”

  “Out. Please.” He gestures toward the door.

  I can see the pressure almost like a physical thing gather around his head. A vein in his forehead bulges and begins to pulse. “If there’s anything I can do…”

  He brings his face inches from mine and yells, “You can get the hell out of here! Now!”

  Scott and his assistants gape at me as I leave the suite.

  Before I check out of the hotel, I give Cindy the news that there is no longer anything to be vigilant about.

  Taking a long breath and masking her dismay, she sends her children and the babysitter out and tells a newspaper reporter she’s talking with on the phone that she’ll get back to her.

  I tell her what happened.

  She runs a distracted hand through her hair. “Oh, God. What can we do?”

  “There’s nothing I can do, that’s pretty clear. Nothing you can do, either. The only person who can do anything now is Laura. And I’m not optimistic she can do very much.”

  She looks at my suitcase.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I have no idea how this is going to play out. I just have the feeling right now that Bobby will do better knowing I’m not around. I’m a distraction at best and an irritant at worst. And until the debate is over, Bobby doing better is still the priority. I’ll be leaving as soon as Laura gets back.”

  She picks up the phone. “She’s over at the Stanhope, right?” I nod. Within a few minutes Cindy is talking to the assistant who drove Laura to the luncheon, explaining that he must get her back as soon as her speech is over, it’s an emergency.

  Within ten minutes, Laura rushes through the central doors and into the lobby, her high heels clicking on the white marble floor. Cindy intercepts her, directs her to the conference room office, and excusing herself, shuts the door on the two of us.

  “What is it?” she says, searching my face as if she could read the answer there.

  “It happened.”

  “What?”

  I pause, letting her adjust to the news she knows is coming. “Between the time you left and I got to Bobby’s room, they got through. They played him the tape of you and me.”

  She blinks, sits slowly on the edge of a chair.

  “They sent one in the mail, too,” I continue, “but we got that one.” I take it out of my jacket pocket and hold it up.

  “How did they get through? I told Scott no calls.”

  “They got a girl who pretended to be Annie. Calling to wish him luck.”

  “H-How did he…?” She seems unable to complete the sentence.

  “Take it?” She nods. “Bad at first. He didn’t slug me, but it was close.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him the truth.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “After a while, I think so. But by the end, he was taking it badly again. He wanted me absolutely out. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think it’s sinking in. And he needs some reassurance I know I can’t give.”

  She stands. “I should go see him.”

  “What are you going to say?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  I am thinking that if she is candid with him now, his concentration will be a thing of the past. “You know,” I say, “if he blows the debate, he’ll lose the election.”

  “I know.”

  I touch her shoulder. “All right.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Call me as soon as you have a chance.”

  She nods, still distracted. “I’d better go up. He’s been under a lot of pressure, he’s tired, he’s got a fever. I don’t want him doing something crazy.”

  “Right. Good luck.”

  She leaves.

  I pick up my bag and I leave the Riverway Hotel and the capital and the campaign. I leave Bobby and Laura to their next hours, and me to mine.

  I keep thinking as I am driving home that I did the best I could to prevent a disaster, and my sober and fully attentive best still wasn’t good enough.

  I am craving a stiff drink.

  16

  I call late that afternoon, again in the evening, and finally once again at night. I cannot get through to anyone: not Laura, not Scott, not Cindy. Whatever is happening—a worsening fever, a blowup with Laura, an intolerable level of pressure on Bobby—has caused the campaign apparatus to close up like a fist. In my last call, I am reduced to asking the hotel receptionist if she happens to know whether the lieutenant governor rehearsed for the debate anytime that da
y. She says she has not seen him come downstairs, so she couldn’t say.

  I take this to mean he has not rehearsed. The original schedule called for him to use the high school auditorium for practice with one of Scott’s assistants standing in as Wheatley.

  Before trying to reach someone from the campaign, however, I make one other phone call to Ross Hacker’s father-in-law, John Van Scoy. I ask him if he can harvest bugs at Bobby’s house and Laura’s office as soon as possible. He is silent for a second, then tells me to look for them in my mailbox anytime after 10:00 p.m.

  “Tonight?” I ask.

  “Tonight,” he says.

  “One other thing,” I say, remembering that a man of his taciturn nature doesn’t always wait to hear goodbye before hanging up.

  “Yes?”

  “Is there a way I can track down who manufactured these?” He is silent once again. “I’d like to find out who bought them…” I add this for no particular reason. I am thinking aloud and his continuing inclination to silence creates a vacuum I feel I ought to fill.

  “No problem.”

  “No problem?” I repeat, completely startled out of my bemusement. “I can find out who bought them?”

  “Unless they’re stolen,” he says. “The FCC requires them to have individual registration numbers and all records of purchase to be kept.”

  “Can I just call the company and ask who bought them?”

  “Little more to it than that. Want me to do it?”

  “Could you? That would be great. How soon can we get the… ?”

  “Your mailbox. After ten.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  “Right,” Van Scoy says, and the line decouples.

  As I wait for ten o’clock, I get out some law books, first the federal annotated code and then the state criminal statutes, to find out some laws concerning wiretapping I have never had to consider before, not even when I was in the prosecutor’s office.

  The rest of the time I try to take my mind off what I cannot know and can no longer hope to affect. Still, despite my efforts, the day and its events play over and over in my mind, all to the tune of the insipid and now-taunting elevator music I heard on my endless ride to the eighth floor of the hotel. Each grim repetition of the events makes me no wiser, and soon I am swarmed, beelike, by a horde of what-ifs. What if I had gotten to the room sooner and intercepted the call? What if Laura had sent the assistant down to get me and waited until I arrived before leaving for the luncheon? What if Scott had told the caller claiming to be Annie her daddy was resting but he’d pass her message along?