The Seersucker Whipsaw

by Ross Thomas

  “Yes, Mastah,” the driver said. He backed the car out of its slot, and went out the gate past the two cops and turned towards the center of town. If the Western Albertian government closed down at two in the afternoon, the rest of the country didn’t. The streets were jammed, and we were stuck five minutes at one crossroads waiting for a herd of rack-ribbed cattle to be driven across by the clubs of the drovers.

  “Those are the sorriest looking critters I ever did see,” Shartelle said. “Boy, they ain’t even canners or cutters.”

  “Look at those horns, though,” I said. “Must be about the same breadth as the Texas longhorns.”

  “That’s a fact,” he agreed. “Wonder if those drovers are going to hoorah it up a little tonight in the local saloon? Five hundred miles they walk ’em, old Chief Akomolo told us. They’re just plain gristle.”

  The cattle passed and William sped us home. We got rid of our coats as soon as we got inside. Samuel the cook, and Charles the steward, were on hand to hang them up. “I serve tea now, Mastah,” Samuel said.

  “You want any tea, Pete?”

  “I think it’s the form.”

  “Okay. Tea.”

  It was cooler inside the wide-eaved house. A breeze blew through the folding doors that led to the front porch. The ceiling fan turned at a brisk clip and I noticed that it could be regulated to go even faster. We sank back in the Ministry of Works chairs and waited for the tea.

  “What do you think of Jenaro?” Shartelle asked.

  “He seems to know his way around.”

  “We start making use of it this afternoon.”

  “How about Diokadu?” I asked.

  “He’ll do. He’s got the facts and figures in his head, or in that pile of papers he’s always got tucked under his arm. He’s a real professor, ain’t he?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, we’ll soon see. When I throw it out, if they don’t light on it like a duck on a June bug, we may as well take the next plane back.”

  “That rough?”

  “You see that crowd at lunch.”

  “Saw and heard.”

  “Not much help there. Those boys have had their hand in the honeypot so long they think that bees don’t sting. But that Dekko’s all right. He’s got the look about him. You only see that look a few times in your life.”

  “What look?”

  “The winner’s look,” Shartelle said.

  Samuel brought in the tea tray and set it down on a low, round table.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Shall I pour and one lump or two?”

  “Two,” Shartelle said. I dropped in two lumps and handed the cup to him. “You like tea?” he asked.

  “I’m used to it.”

  “Think we could get old Samuel to drop a couple of ice cubes into it? If we’ve got to have it, boy, I’d sure admire to have it iced up a little.”

  “I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. It’ll take careful explanation.”

  I could hear the Jaguar shift down into second as it slowed for our driveway. Jenaro, big dark shades over his eyes and a checked cotton cap on the back of his head, threw a little gravel as he braked the car to a stop in front of the door. He jumped out and came in.

  “How jolly, chaps, I’m just in time for tea,” he said.

  “You don’t have to,” I said.

  “Good, I’ll pass.” He slumped into an arm chair, took off his glasses and hat and placed them on the floor. “Diokadu will be here in a minute,” he said. “He had to stop by his office to pick up some papers.”

  We talked idly for a few minutes until Dr. Diokadu arrived, a fat sheaf of papers under one arm. He seemed to be as hurried and preoccupied as usual. He accepted a cup of tea, and when he was seated Shartelle began. There was no deference in his voice now. He was mapping a campaign, much like a general outlining a battle. It was his idea, his plan, and it was also his responsibility.

  “The first thing. How many speeches have you got Akomolo booked for. You or Doc?”

  It may have been the first time that Dr. Diokadu ever had been called Doc, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He produced a notebook that was tucked away in his file. “Three a day, every day between Monday and election eve.”

  “Could he speak more often?” Shartelle asked. “I mean could he find more audiences?”

  “He could if he could get to them,” Jenaro said.

  “Start booking him at every crossroads and general store, wherever he can find five people or five thousand. How’s his health—I mean can he take twelve, even fifteen speeches a day? They won’t all be long ones.”

  “He’s in good health,” Dr. Diokadu said. “He takes excellent care of himself.”

  “Okay,” Shartelle said. “Now Jimmy. I need two helicopters. Where’re the closest ones—and I don’t mean London.”

  Jenaro thought for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. “The oil company has two.”

  “You have a connection?”

  “Right.”

  “Get them. Promise them subsurface rights for the entire country. But get them here by Monday. Can you?”

  “I’ll have them here.”

  Dr. Diokadu had his notebook out now.

  “Doc,” Shartelle said. “Have you got backup papers for the main issues? Farm, unemployment, and so forth?”

  “I have them right here. I thought we would discuss them this afternoon.”

  “Believe it or not,” Shartelle said, “we just had our last policy discussion about an hour ago. It’s your policy and it’s your country. Just give them to Pete.” Dr. Diokadu handed me a thick sheaf of typed documents. I thumbed through them.

  “How long would it take you to give me a the speech, Pete?”

  I riffled through the documents again. “A the speech takes about four hours. Maybe five if the flies bother me.”

  “We need it tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “You’ll have it.”

  “How about the rest?”

  “Well, there’ll be the Farm Speech, the Unemployment Speech, the Medical Care Speech and so forth. Five or six in all. I can knock out the speech tomorrow and maybe a couple of more before I collapse. The rest of them by the next day.”

  “You’re slowing down,” he said.

  “It’s the semi-tropics,” Jenaro said. “Saps the vigor of the white man.”

  “Doc, who’s in charge of translating—you or Jimmy?” Shartelle asked.

  “I am.”

  “Okay. As soon as Pete writes one and we look it over, I want it translated and mimeographed into as many dialects and languages as you think necessary.”

  Dr. Diokadu grinned. “Right. I know just the chaps.”

  “Now then,” Shartelle went on. “When you book these speeches for Akomolo, make sure you find out what dialect or language is most prevalent in the district he’s going to speak in. And when he speaks, make sure you’ve got an interpreter with him. If he can’t make himself understood, there ain’t no use in him setting that helicopter down.”

  “You mentioned two helicopters,” Jenaro said.

  “I need two. One for Akomolo and one for Dekko. No sense in them traveling around together. This is no brother act. And what I said, Doc, about booking speeches for Akomolo, do the same for Dekko. There may be some repetition, but I never heard of it hurting a thing in a political campaign.”

  “You want translators, bookings, the lot for Dekko, too?”

  “Right.”

  Dr. Diokadu stood up, said “excuse me” and slipped off his embroidered outer robe and flung it into an empty chair. He was getting caught up in Shartelle’s planning. Jenaro took off his coat and dropped it on the floor with his hat and glasses. Both were making furious notes now. Shartelle rose and started to pace the room.

  “Pete, have you got their cadence?”

  “I got it this afternoon,” I said. “I’ll have to write different speeches. That’s no problem. Dekko takes them up the mountain and shows them the valley down below and t
he lushness that prevails. Akomolo describes what can be done through hard work, determination, and sacrifice. It makes people feel good both ways because they get to the promised land by either route.”

  Dr. Diokadu looked at me curiously. “How do you know what they said? They were talking in the dialect.”

  Shartelle paused his pacing in front of Diokadu. “Doc, when you’ve heard as many speeches as Pete and me you’ll know what’s being said regardless of the language.”

  “I got off some nifties,” Jenaro said.

  “We need a newspaper,” Shartelle said. “A weekly every week between now and election. Lots of pictures, big type, and cartoons—political cartoons that don’t need captions. It’ll have to be English. We haven’t got time for the makeover. Jimmy?”

  “I know the guy. He’ll edit it. He was an exchange student in the States and used to work on the Santa Fe New Mexican.”

  “Get him. And pay him plenty. Doc, you’re acquainted in the intellectual circles, I take it.”

  Diokadu nodded.

  “Okay. Set up a committee. ‘Albertian Writers and Artists for Akomolo.’ When you get it set up—and I expect it to be by the first of next week—we’ll tap them for articles—short ones—cartoons, everything we can milk from them. Jimmy: give that guy who’s going to edit the paper a call tonight and tell him to start rounding up a staff. Can he find enough reporters?”

  “We’ve got more journalists in Albertia than we have farmers,” Dr. Diokadu said.

  “Pete. For whatever good it will do, I want a press release every morning and one every afternoon.”

  “Right. Just give me Akomolo’s schedule and an indication of what speech he’ll be using. Also I’ll keep tabs on the opposition and if they step out of line, he can always rap them back.”

  “Good. Now, fans.”

  “I’ve got a note on that,” I said.

  “Buttons.”

  “Big ones,” I said.

  “Saw a guy lose an election one time because he had little buttons,” Shartelle said. “Jimmy, I need five million buttons by the middle of next week. If we get them here, can you get rid of them?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. We’ll call Duffy tonight.”

  “Buttons?” Dr. Diokadu asked.

  “Metal buttons with a slogan on them,” Jenaro explained. “Like ‘I Go Ako.’”

  “You just wrote it,” Shartelle said. “Pete?”

  “I’ll buy it, even if he did steal it from Pogo.”

  “Same for the fans?”

  “Sure.”

  “Jimmy. Can we make fans here in Albertia with ‘I Go Ako’ on them? Used to make them out of palmetto some place, I recall. What I was thinking is this: if we could set up cottage industries all over the country with these fan orders, it’d be just like buying votes.”

  Jenaro wrote furiously. “I know a guy—” he started.

  “Get in touch with him. Get it done. Get them distributed.”

  “Right.”

  “Drums,” Shartelle said softly. “I need me some drums.” He was still pacing the room, a twisty black cigar down to a stub between his teeth. The smoke left a trail behind him.

  “Talking drums?” Jenaro asked.

  “How well do they talk?” Shartelle said. “Can they get a simple message across? Like ‘I Go Ako’?”

  Dr. Diokadu rose and walked over to the table where the tea tray rested. “Watch,” he said. He picked up the tray and set it down on the floor. With his hands he beat a rhythm on the table. “That’s ‘I Go Ako.’ What else?”

  Shartelle thought a moment. “Beware or look out for devil in sky. Maybe ju-ju in sky?”

  “Beware of ju-ju in sky, we’ll say,” Diokadu decided. “It goes like this.” Once more he beat out the rhythm on the table.

  “How far do they carry?” Shartelle asked.

  Diokadu shrugged. “Not far—maybe a mile.”

  “Do people understand them?”

  “Not everyone, but they ask. They’re curious, so they find out.”

  “Can you buy them?” Shartelle demanded.

  “The drums?”

  “The drummers.”

  “Ah!” said Diokadu and got to his feet, a wide smile of delight on his face. “I see. Yes.” He looked at Jenaro. “What do you think?”

  “It shouldn’t be too hard. We get the key drummers set up and give them the money to buy the drummers out in the bush.”

  “Every night they get a message to drum,” Shartelle said. “Sometimes it’s cryptic, sometimes it’s simply ‘I Go Ako,’ but I want these goddamned drums beating every night.”

  “It’ll take both Diokadu and me for this,” Jenaro said thoughtfully. “But we’ll fix it. I don’t know how far north we’ll be able to go.”

  “Probably quite far. It’s been spreading in recent years.”

  “Do it,” Shartelle said. He walked over and sat down in his chair, his long, seersucker-clad legs sprawled out in front of him. He leaned his head back and yelled: “Samuel!”

  There was an answering cry: “Sah!” Samuel came on the trot. “Drinks are in order, I believe, Samuel,” Shartelle said.

  “Sah,” Samuel agreed. He picked up the tea tray, gathered up the cups and left. He was back shortly with a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of gin, quinine water, soda, ice and glasses. He served the guests first and Shartelle last. The pecking order was firmly established.

  “Jimmy,” Shartelle said, “I want three more phones in this house, desks for that empty room back there, a couple of filing cabinets—one will do—some chairs and a typewriter. You’ve got mimeograph equipment at party headquarters, don’t you?”

  Jenaro had put his drink down to write some more in his notebook. Diokadu looked poised to do the same. Jenaro told Shartelle that the headquarters had all the necessary office equipment.

  “Now I know I’ve given you a lot of work to do,” Shartelle said. “We’ll handle whatever we can ourselves, but you know the country, you know the sources, and you know the people. I would like to check with you several times a day. I don’t want to set up any regular breakfast appointments, because if you don’t have anything to talk about, they get in the way. But you can expect me to call any time of day or night. I expect the same from you.”

  Diokadu laughed out loud. “I was laughing at myself,” he said. “I expected a rather long—and interesting—theoretical discussion about the merits of the various planks in our platform. As a political scientist, I must say that this afternoon has been even more interesting than I imagined possible—and even more illuminating.”

  “Well, Doc, we’ve just begun the operation. This is our side. This is what we’re going to do. It’s not fancy, but it’s good, sound political practice. It’s exposure of the candidate. Now comes the even more interesting part of our operation.”

  “What’s that?” Jenaro asked.

  “We start planning the campaigns for the opposition,” Shartelle said dreamily. “We start to whipsaw.”

  Chapter

  14

  Shartelle did not go into the whipsaw operation that evening, explaining that he wanted “to study about it some more.” Diokadu and Jenaro left, the former looking somewhat nervously at his list of things to do today and tomorrow. Jenaro roared off in his XK-E, apparently unconcerned.

  “Those boys will do,” Shartelle said. “They caught the spirit.”

  “I’ll give you that the speech tomorrow.”

  “Time enough, Petey. We’ve had a pretty full day.”

  “It’s getting fuller,” I said. “We’re having some more company.”

  A medium-sized man dressed in a white shirt, white walking shorts, calf-high white socks and black oxfords had turned into our driveway and was strolling towards the house. He carried a walking stick of twisted black wood that he used to knock a few pebbles out of his path. Shartelle and I went out on the porch to meet him.

  He gave us a calm, speculative appraisal from eyes that had squinte
d into a lot of sun. As he drew near, I saw that the eyes were cool green.

  “Evening,” he said.

  “Evening,” Shartelle replied.

  “I’m your neighbor,” the man said. “Live just around the curve there. Thought I’d pay a social call. Downer said you were due.”

  “I’m Clint Shartelle and this is Pete Upshaw.”

  “John Cheatwood.”

  “Won’t you come in and sit a spell, Mr. Cheatwood?”

  “Thanks very much.”

  He dropped into one of the chairs in the living room, and held his black stick across his bare knees. He was about forty-five, I judged, fit-looking, lean, with a good strong face that appeared to have seen much of what the world has to offer.

  “Mr. Upshaw and I were just about to have a drink, Mr. Cheatwood. I hope you’ll join us.”

  “Thank you.”

  Shartelle yelled for the steward and after the drink-mixing ritual we leaned back in our chairs and waited for our neighbor to start the small talk if small talk were in order.

  “Your first trip to Africa?” he asked.

  “Very first,” Shartelle said.

  “Downer said you’d be running the political show for Akomolo.”

  “We’re just advisers.”

  Cheatwood took a swallow of his drink. “It’s giving us a bit of a headache,” he said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Quite likely be a bit of fuss between now and the election. Elections seem to stir them up and they sometimes get out of hand. But I think we’ll manage well enough.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “Beg your pardon,” Cheatwood said with an apologetic smile. “I should have mentioned it. The police here in the western region. I’m the Captain in charge.”

  Shartelle regarded our visitor with new interest. “You going to be in charge of the poll-watching, Captain?”

  “Not really. Our job will be to collect the ballot boxes, make sure that they’re properly sealed, and transport them to a safe place for counting. We’re keeping the place a secret. The various parties will have monitors—or poll-watchers, if you prefer—at the voting spots.”

  “You expecting trouble?”

  Cheatwood nodded his head. “A goodly amount, I’d say. Chaps down here always get excited over elections. They get carried away. And then there’re the hooligans.”