Access to Power

by Robert Ellis

  Frank printed two copies of his spot, looked up and noticed Linda in her office on the other side of the war room. She stood by the window with the sun on her face, gazing at the Capitol as she spoke on the phone and twirled the cord between her thumb and forefinger, probably checking in with a client or campaign manager. As he looked at her long legs, his memories of the body underneath her tweed suit came rushing into his head. The times they’d had when they were together. It was like that every day he saw her. It was like that even when he was alone and only thinking of her in his head.

  He missed her. He missed everything about her.

  They had met in New York during the governor’s campaign and spent long hours on the road together in what had become an unexpectedly tight race. Linda was a smart campaign manager, had a natural instinct for politics and they had become good friends. When she expressed interest in moving from Albany, Frank asked her to join the firm and taught her everything he knew. Linda was someone he could talk to. Someone who got it the first time. Then, on a snowy night in February, it finally happened. He remembered her green eyes lingering on his mouth. The taste of their first kiss. The feeling in his chest when they touched each other. He could still feel it even though it had ended more than a year and a half ago.

  Linda laughed into the phone. Frank tried to look away, but couldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t talking to a client after all. Maybe it was someone more personal, more intimate. He’d wondered for the past few months if she hadn’t been dropping hints that she was ready to begin seeing other men. Just two days ago, someone had sent her flowers but not included a card. He didn’t think that she would never hurt him willingly. It wasn’t in her and they had remained friendly. Still, at a certain point you had to begin living again and move on.

  Tracy walked in, breaking the spell as she grabbed a copy of the script. “The Merdocks, Frank.”

  He heard the anxiousness in her voice. He looked up and saw Mel Merdock storming into the war room with his brother and campaign manager, Jake. Both looked worried as they headed for the conference room.

  “Sammy’s at the recording studio,” Tracy said. “You need to get out of here.”

  He checked his watch. “We’ll do the voice track by phone. Have the sound studio set up a patch so I can listen from here. Let me know when they’re ready.”

  He walked out, then turned back. Tracy was already behind his desk, dialing the phone.

  “You know what?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re the best. That’s what.”

  She flashed an embarrassed smile and turned back to the phone. Then Frank crossed the war room. He didn’t need to ask why his clients were here. He’d sent them a copy of Lou Kay’s attack ad by messenger. It was a mistake, he realized now. He had to move fast. There wasn’t enough time to hold anyone’s hand.

  Chapter 4

  Frank glanced at Woody brooding in his office as he entered the conference room and closed the glass door. Merdock and Jake turned from the window, the worry on their faces still burning like a grass fire.

  Merdock was a young thirty-eight. Frank knew that if his light features and boyish face read like schoolboy charm, his looks would be an advantage. A fresh face going up against all the old hacks voters associated with Capitol Hill. But if it went the other way, if it read like naiveté, which was exactly what Stewart Brown was trying to do with Lou Kay’s negative ads, then Merdock’s good looks would work against them and they wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Did you see it?” Merdock asked, his voice shaking.

  Frank nodded. He poured a cup of coffee and remained standing as Merdock and Jake took seats at the table. Jake was younger than his brother, but darker and more shrewd-looking.

  “How do you think this affects Mel’s chances?” Jake asked.

  “If we work quickly, the spot won’t have any effect at all,” Frank said. “It’s the first hit. And Stewart Brown did just what I said he would. He kept Lou Kay off the air. They saved their money. Now they’re gonna hit hard. Negative all the way to election day.”

  “How do we fight that?” Merdock blurted out.

  “We hit back harder. And we do it more times.”

  Merdock dug into his briefcase, pulling out a copy of The Washington Post. “A poll came out in this morning’s paper. We’re losing. Maybe we should make a change on some of our issues.”

  “What issues?” Frank asked. “You don’t have any.”

  Merdock dropped the paper, looking at Jake for help.

  Frank let their jitters pass. More money would be spent in the Merdock/Kay race than any other Senate campaign in the history of the country. The total media buy would better what was spent on a presidential campaign just ten years ago. Because most of the money would be dumped in three short weeks, it would be a campaign to remember. No one watching television at any hour of the day would be able to hide their head in the sand. Even if they had cable.

  Frank leaned over the table, staring at them. “What you say or do after you’re elected is none of my business. Until you’re elected, I write the copy.”

  “If I want to win,” Merdock said.

  Frank nodded. “We’ve got polling data that shows people who read newspapers think the most important issues are jobs and education. But it also shows that people who don’t read newspapers and watch TV think crime’s the real issue. How’s that possible when almost every study shows crime going down?”

  Frank looked through the glass at Tracy waving at him from her desk. His recording session was ready.

  “Local TV news isn’t news anymore,” Merdock said.

  Frank pushed his coffee aside, untouched. “It’s a crime report designed to scare the shit out of people. So here’s what we do. When we’re on TV, crime’s the big issue. In print, it’s jobs, education and social security.”

  Jake leaned forward and grinned. “In other words, we give the audience exactly what they want. But what about their spot? What are you gonna do about that?”

  “Turn it around,” Frank said, swinging the door open and hustling toward his office. “Make them wish they never made it.”

  Chapter 5

  Parked across the street from Miles, Darrow & Associates, George Raymond sat in his Honda Accord trying to get one last look at the place in the afternoon light. He had already scouted the location two days before, but another look never hurt.

  The building was surprisingly informal, more like a house than an office, and he guessed that there had to be a history to the place. But what he liked most about the layout was the privacy. The political media firm was the sole occupant and owned the property. Tucked away from the street, the building stood hidden in the trees behind thick, ivy-covered walls.

  The front door opened. Raymond watched one of the partners cross the lot to a white Lexus carrying a garment bag and a stack of videotapes. He looked rushed, barreling out of the lot without taking in his surroundings. When the car disappeared around the corner, Raymond sat back, sipping coffee from his travel mug and letting his mind wander.

  In spite of the bricks lining the bottom, the trunk had floated almost a hundred yards down river before it finally sank in the Potomac.

  He had returned to the river the next day for a casual look around. The water appeared deep and murky. No one would miss her for weeks, if at all. No one would find her for years, if ever. It had been a good spot, he’d decided, even though it had been chosen in haste. And he liked the idea that she was still in Washington, within view of the cameras every night on the evening news. Watching TV would be more fun knowing she was there. Still, he’d heard something just as the trunk vanished below the surface. A whistling sound. He remembered checking for a pulse and not finding one. Beneath the blond hair, her face looked battered. From what he could tell, her neck had been snapped. He smiled at the thought of her going into the water alive and promised himself that when the night was over, he would return to the Iwo Jima Motel and call his wife. Better make s
ure that she and the kids were okay before taking a long hot shower and getting some sleep.

  The world could be a scary place. One could never tell.

  The cassette in his tape player switched sides. It was an audio book by his favorite author and included the ten key steps he would need to achieve success in his business and personal relationships. Raymond had listened to all six tapes in the series many times before. Side 1 covered defining the problem issues in his life. Side 2 would be addressing his goals and how to reach them.

  As the tape started, he studied his hair in the rearview mirror. He’d been gray for ten years, but liked the new cut. A long crew that had a hint of spike to it. He was forty-five now. And his new cut had done just what his stylist suggested it might: change his self-image by making him look ten years younger without a dye job.

  He glanced at his teeth, bright and clean, listening to the tape and deciding that he’d better save it for later. Goals were important and he’d become distracted, his mind skipping over all the good parts. Planning a business strategy was the key step. The one losers always glossed over. He returned the tape to its vinyl case and slid it beneath the seat. Then he picked up his file, opened it to a photocopy and had another look.

  It was an article dated six months earlier from The Washington Post. A crime story from the Metro Section detailing the burglary and arrest of two teenagers, Sonny Stockwell and Alan Ingrams. Raymond had gone to the library the day before and found it in the newspaper’s archives as he searched for just the right person.

  Photos of the two burglars were included. And as Raymond glanced at them, he felt sure that Stockwell was the leader. The kid looked young for his age, even smart, with a huge chip on his shoulder. The article sketched his troubled history in a single paragraph and even mentioned the block number where he lived with his grandmother. Sonny Stockwell would be perfect. And he lived just ten minutes away in a section of Washington that would never wind up on a postcard because only the forgotten lived there. Just like the girl in the river behind all those monuments. No one would ever remember her. No one would ever guess.

  Chapter 6

  The edit suite was completely digital and cost between two and three hundred thousand to put together. The lights were dimmed, the medium-sized space always kept dark but for the radiance of monitors set into the main wall of the room. Below the monitors, a workbench made of solid oak ran the entire length of the wall providing easy access to the computer used for generating text, the video switcher and digital audio mixer. Behind the editing console stood the client’s table with two telephones and two richly padded leather chairs. Off to the side, a short set of steps led to a couch and coffee table overlooking the rest of the room.

  Although the suite was state of the art, Frank paid the five-hundred-dollar-an-hour rate to edit here because of Kip, a twenty-eight-year-old sitting at the switcher in jeans and a T-shirt. Kip performed magic as if it were routine. What he brought to the edit session outweighed the value of the technology. Even today.

  Frank stood by the title camera in his underwear, adjusting a small piece of blank copy paper that he’d torn into a rough-edged, three-inch square. He studied the monitor as Kip typed Lou Kay takes money from special interest groups onto the screen. When they were done, the words were superimposed over the piece of torn paper and looked exactly like a headline ripped out of a newspaper.

  “That’s it,” Frank said. “Bring it in and hold it.”

  Making television spots was the point at which everything in a campaign finally came together. Frank had always wondered why most political consultants sat on the couch in the back of the room, talking on the phone and not participating in the process except to say yes or no.

  Frank returned to the client’s table, dug into his garment bag and pulled out his tux for the president’s fund-raiser. When he spotted the Thermos pot set beside a bowl of fresh fruit, he realized that he’d forgotten to eat lunch. He poured a cup of coffee and sipped it, but the hot liquid only seemed to draw out his hunger.

  They had been at it for an hour. Each line of voice-over copy reduced to key words typed onto the screen over different shape and size variations of that torn piece of blank paper. Once they looked like headlines, they were inserted over different shots. Limousines. Faceless men in dark suits carrying overstuffed briefcases through shadowy halls. Power brokers and big shots and what the people hated most about Washington.

  Frank thought it over as he got into his shirt. He’d used this technique with success since the early nineties. Headlines gave his words added credibility whether they were real headlines or not. And if they followed the copy, if what the voter saw on their TV mirrored what he or she heard the announcer say, then the spot moved seamlessly, like a child following cartoon lyrics by keeping his or her eye on the bouncing ball.

  Frank developed the technique himself in the eleventh hour of a race for attorney general that had gone totally negative. At the time, the mid-western state had been embroiled in an insurance scandal that seemed to lead from the attorney general to the governor’s office. Following the money trail was complicated even for the professionals overseeing the investigation. The acting attorney general knew that if he could keep the waters muddy, he still might have a chance at reelection. His spot came out on a Friday, ten days before election day, accusing Frank’s client of being involved in the scandal. It was a lie, of course, but the attorney general had succeeded in confusing the voters. By Monday morning Frank’s client was nose diving. They’d lost twenty points in two days and things were out of control.

  Frank wasn’t sure how to respond. It was the first time that he’d been confronted with an outright lie. And his client, a challenger new to politics with a soft base, was having trouble raising money. Frank knew that he would only get one shot at it, but he couldn’t think of anything strong enough to cut through all the bullshit. He needed something he could count on, something that would carry the weight of fact. All he had when he went into the edit suite was a 3x5 photo of the attorney general clipped from the man’s own campaign brochure.

  The clock was ticking with Frank sweating it out at the client’s table, his eyes locked on the photo wrapped in a small piece of plain white paper. And then it hit him. Headlines. Fake headlines. As big and bold as he could make them. Kip came up with the idea of tearing the edges, making them look authentic. Within two hours, the spot was cut, dubbed and ready for overnight shipping to every television station in the state. And it worked. Frank’s client made up the twenty points and added fifteen more. They won the election and the sitting attorney general and governor were convicted and sentenced to ten years behind bars.

  The door opened. Frank turned to the sudden shock of light from the hall and saw Linda entering. She seemed worried, cradling files and videotapes in her arms as she sat down in the chair next to his at the client’s table. Frank got into his pants and tucked in his shirt.

  “We’re almost done,” he said.

  Kip turned to her and smiled. “We’re making another spot?”

  “Just a fix,” she said. “Colorado.”

  As Kip got back to work, she picked up Frank’s script. Frank sat beside her, pulling on his shoes. The light scent of her perfume set his mind rolling, and he hoped that she would finish her edit in time to make the president’s fund-raiser.

  She lowered the script, thinking it over. “You know you could say this about anyone who holds office anywhere, right?”

  Frank smiled. “Attitude’s everything. You know that. Let’s take a look.”

  Kip rewound the spot and sat back to watch as Lou Kay’s negative ad hit the monitor with shots of Virginia and all those game show sound effects. But within a few seconds, the visuals were smashed with the words IT’S A LIE. Then the screen split in two. On the left, old footage of Lou Kay speaking at a podium faded up with the speed slowed down and the color bleached out to a gritty black-and-white. On the right, the fake headlines Frank and Kip had designed were
cutting in one after the other over shots of limousines and power brokers wearing expensive suits and carrying those big briefcases through those marble halls. Lou Kay was fifty, with graying hair and a strong face. If his picture were removed from Frank’s spot, he would look bright, forceful, most would say senatorial. Instead, he looked like an overfed Washington hack.

  VOICE-OVER ANNOUNCER:

  It’s a lie. What Lou Kay is saying in TV ads like these are absolute lies. The truth is that Lou Kay is running a negative campaign. Why? Because Lou Kay and his big Washington consultants are hiding something. What Lou Kay doesn’t want you to know is that he’s taken big contributions from lobbyists, even special interest groups. What Virginia really needs is a senator who isn’t in the pocket of the big shots. Mel Merdock hasn’t taken one dime from lobbyists or special interest groups. On election day, you can make the difference. Say NO to Washington big shots. Say NO to Lou Kay.

  The spot wasn’t subtle, just devastating, and everyone in the room started laughing.

  Frank got into his jacket and zipped up his garment bag. When he turned to Linda, he knew that she understood. Mel Merdock didn’t need to take money from lobbyists or special interest groups. He didn’t need to take a dime from anyone. His father had been a millionaire. When he died, Mel and Jake had inherited his entire fortune. On the other hand, Lou Kay had done nothing wrong. His campaign was being funded by contributors from every level of society like any other campaign. But what Frank had said was true. Attitude tilted all the scales. Lou Kay was a bad guy because Frank had made him look like a bad guy and the voice-over announcer said he was.

  Linda turned to Frank and smiled. “How to make nothing seem like everything, by Frank Miles.”

  “Is this country great or what?” he said.