Delsiner looked directly at him.
“You get that tan on a beach somewhere? A beach with no newspapers or TV? You can’t turn around a national election in twelve days, not when you’re double-digits behind.”
“I think there’s going to be a surprise.”
“Ah, the famous October Surprise. Hell, the only surprise that would help Lightstone would be coming up with something original to say, a compelling reason for voters to oust the president. He hasn’t done that in ten months, he’s not going to do it in ten days.”
“What could move a few percentage points over to the Republicans?”
Delsiner sipped his coffee while, on the television, Lightstone segued, awkwardly, Zach thought, from a riff on health insurance to human rights abuses in Kamalia.
“The president could be caught on video fucking a farm animal. That would probably turn a few people off, especially if it’s a male farm animal.” Delsiner took a deep breath—he’d been caught on video too. “Or something could happen overseas, some sort of war breaking out. When Americans start dying, voters start paying attention.”
“So it’s scandal or war,” Zach said. It seemed a safe bet that Julian was cooking up the former—war was beyond even Julian’s grasp.
“And I don’t see either coming. Nessin hasn’t so much as looked at a woman other than his wife since the day he set eyes on her. And as for war, well, it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards for the next week or two. Terror attack? Since the Chicago train bombings and the DC ricin scare, it’s Fortress America. Nessin inherited that, you can’t really blame where we’re at on him. Last month we turned away more than twelve thousand people at airports—some of them just for having the wrong name or complexion. ‘Better safe than sorry’—they should put that on the Statue of Liberty. Nessin says he wants to roll back some homeland security policies, but he won’t do anything about it. No president wants another attack on his watch. Now, you said something about a theory.”
Zach launched into his story, trying his best to appear calm, rational, focused—anything but a raving lunatic spinning conspiracy theories. Delsiner listened attentively, revealing nothing about what he was thinking. But when Zach was done Delsiner shook his head, a half smile on his lips.
“Just in case I missed something,” he said. “Your man Julian Mellow caused Charlie Moore’s plane crash. He set up the so-called drug sale that killed my career. He has something on Harry Lightstone that’s forcing him to focus on Kamalia, where his son was murdered. He’s got this former radical running around the country killing people, or trying to, including a San Francisco prostitute and you and your girlfriend. Did I miss anything?”
“No.”
After a short silence, Delsiner said, “You know, I almost wish it were all true.”
Zach felt the air rush out of his chest. “It is true,” he said, but the words emerged in a feeble whisper.
On screen, Lightstone had moved on to education, proposing a hodgepodge of tax credits for college tuition and parochial schools and grants to states for new schools and more teachers. He sounded halfhearted, as if even he knew none of this would happen, no matter who got elected. It was pathetic, Zach thought, when the candidates had become as cynical as the electorate.
“Now that I’m out of the game, it all seems so tired,” Delsiner said, turning away from the screen. “No wonder it all comes down to who you’d rather have a beer with—nobody really believes that anything’s going to change. That’s why people like you want to believe in some sort of massive conspiracy of billionaires. At least there’s some comfort in knowing that someone in this goddamn country can make things happen.”
“It’s not a conspiracy. It’s one person.”
Delsiner gave him a pitying look which, given its source—a fallen, disgraced politician—drove Zach to an even deeper level of misery.
“Harry Lightstone has always been one of the luckiest guys in the world, you know that? Born with a face that belongs on a ten-dollar bill, married to a gal rich enough to buy him a seat in Congress, then the Senate, two healthy sons. Next to those advantages, what’s a plane crash in Maine and a drug deal in a DC parking lot? More good luck, that all.”
“You’re saying you really bought the drugs?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Because if you were set up, it means—”
“It means shit.” Delsiner stood up and refilled his coffee mug, which, after a moment’s consideration, he emptied in the sink. “It’s all about perception, and the perception is that I bought drugs that night outside my gym. What actually happened doesn’t matter to anybody.”
“It matters to me, because I believe that Julian Mellow set you up, but if you’re telling me that you actually bought drugs…” Delsiner moved aimlessly around the kitchen, as if physically dodging the issue. “Isn’t your reputation worth anything?”
“I spent a week last January on every news and interview show in America, claiming innocence. Look where it got me.”
“What if I had proof?”
Delsiner stopped and looked at him. His eyes showed a spark of life.
“Where’s your computer?”
Upstairs, in a bedroom that had been converted into a study, Delsiner turned on a desktop computer. Zach took control of the mouse and Googled Billy Sandifer. Within a few seconds he had pulled up a photograph of Sandifer leaving Williston Prison.
“Did you see this guy outside your gym that night?”
Delsiner drew his chair closer to the screen. As he studied the image, Zach told him everything he knew about Sandifer, including how he’d come to know Julian Mellow.
“No.” Zach felt the tension of the past twenty-four hours come crashing down on him. “I didn’t see him, but I knew the guy in the video…”
“You knew him?”
“What I didn’t know, still don’t know, is how he found me. He was my dealer a long time ago, here in Saint Louis. What was he doing in Washington? And where the hell did he go? No one can find him, not even the media.” Delsiner got up. “I gave him some money. He seemed kind of manic, which frightened me, and he insisted I give him a thumbs-up, which didn’t look good on video. My wife earns a good living as a lawyer. My daughters are both married to good men, they ask nothing from me. I’m getting used to obscurity. There are worse things.”
“I don’t believe you mean that.”
“What you believe doesn’t matter. What happened last winter was a fucking nightmare. I won’t go back there unless you have absolute proof.”
“I’ll get proof,” Zach said. On the monitor, Billy Sandifer’s image appeared to grow brighter, more vivid as they talked, as if he were taking strength from the ex-senator’s reluctance to pursue him. Sandifer had to be the link between the drug dealer and Delsiner—Julian would never get involved in something as sordid as tracking down a dealer and videotaping him in a parking lot. Someone, after all, had handled the video recorder. He logged off and followed Delsiner downstairs.
“Julian Mellow,” Delsiner said, holding open the front door. “You know, I could always count on him for a big contribution, back before McCain-Feingold. But I always figured him for more of a Democrat than Republican, one of those guys who likes to salt the GOP with cash but basically supports the tax-and-spenders. Never understood rich guys who root against their own interests.”
“I never had a single political discussion with him. He thinks he’s above politics.”
“And how about you?”
“It’s not about politics. I don’t care who wins. Not anymore. It’s about saving my life, my girlfriend’s life.”
“And about settling an old score.”
“It’s way beyond that now.”
Delsiner nodded. “Well, whatever it is that’s driving you, I wish you luck.”
Zach started down the path toward his car but turned around.
“You believe me,” he said, smiling for the first time in days. Delsiner face remained
expressionless, but Zach saw something in his eyes, a spark of interest, of hope. “You believe me,” he repeated before turning back and heading for his car.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
Chapter 51
Harry Lightstone had just finished speaking to an audience of police officers in Gary, Indiana, when Michael Steers tapped him on the shoulder. The tap was not unexpected. His communications director was often on the podium with him, part of the crowd of photogenic “supporters” who could be trusted to clap enthusiastically at appropriate moments. Mike liked to say something encouraging after a speech, “They’re eating out of your hand, Senator,” being his favorite line. This time his message was different.
“There’s good news, Senator,” he shouted above the din of applause from the friendly audience. Indiana was a state the Republicans had to win to be in contention, and he was down somewhere between eleven points, according to Gallup, and seven points, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. The bus tour was crossing a number of pivotal states like Indiana, the last stop, to little avail. (The states to the east were pretty much beyond his grasp.) Perhaps Mike had just heard otherwise.
“Let me shake a few hands and then we’ll talk,” he said.
“No time. We need to react fast.”
Normally he liked to walk to the edge of the stage and lean over to press some sympathetic flesh. He was tired of listening to his advisers, who had done little to help his cause, but at least he was being summoned to hear good news. He gave a final wave to the cheering cops who had, as expected, responded deliriously to his call for increased federal funding for law enforcement, and exited stage left, Mike Steers close behind.
“A story just hit the wires about the vice president. Apparently his blind trusts aren’t so blind.”
Harry felt a small letdown. Wealth was the elephant in the room of the campaign, something that was never mentioned because all four candidates, presidential and vice presidential, were filthy rich. Politics had become a rich man’s hobby. If Evan Smith’s blind trust was in play, so was Marcella’s trust fund, and if the Democrats went there, the Republicans would have to plant stories about President Nessin’s dividends from Stellar Corp., the defense contractor he’d briefly headed between stints in Washington.
“Masters Broadcasting is leading with a story tonight that Smith directed his investment firm to move his assets out of oil and gas and into media stocks.”
“Jesus, why would he do something so stupid?”
They were leaving the speech venue, a public high school, by the cafeteria door. Harry spent a lot of time walking through kitchens, and each time he thought of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles and wondered anew why he’d gotten into this game and if he’d meet his end in a cold, sanitized room full of oversized stainless-steel appliances.
“Not stupid,” Mike said as they walked through a cordon of Secret Service agents toward a waiting SUV—one of the few overt luxuries, along with a private plane, that candidates were still allowed, indeed expected, to have. “Smith must have known the exploration bill was going to pass. And as for media companies, he was the administration’s point man with Congress, so he knew—”
“Stupid because he knew he couldn’t get away with it.”
They got in the limo, someone closed the back door, and off they went to the airport, a driver and Secret Service agent up front.
“Where his money and his dick are involved, every man thinks he’s invincible.” Mike checked his watch. “It’s just about six. Let’s watch.” It took him less than a minute to find a Masters Broadcasting affiliate feed on his phone.
“Allegations surfaced today concerning the financial arrangements of vice president Evan Smith. A highly confidential internal email from the head of the investment firm that manages the vice president’s so-called blind trust, Searchlight Investments, informs a subordinate that the vice president has requested a shift out of energy stocks and into media stocks. The request came shortly before the administration announced its support of the wildlife drilling initiative, which drove down energy prices, and its support of the media ownership expansion bill, which drove up the value of media companies. With a blind trust, the beneficiary, in this case the vice president, is supposed to have no knowledge or control of the assets under management. They are typically established for politicians who need to avoid conflicts of interest. For more on this story, we go to senior White House Correspondent Al Diamond. Al?”
Harry felt a familiar dread as he listened—though the story, if it had legs, would certainly help his campaign. “Who owns Searchlight?” he asked.
“Julian Mellow. Why?” Mike pointed to the screen, where Al Diamond, his trench coat buttoned to the neck against the October chill, was standing at the end of the long driveway that led up to the Naval Observatory, the official home of the vice president.
“The vice president, through a spokesman, has denied that he ever contacted anyone from Searchlight. Vice President Smith is campaigning in Wisconsin and is not available for comment. His spokesman did say, however, that the vice president’s positions on both drilling and media ownership have been well known for a long time and that he in no way sought to profit from what was common knowledge. The spokesman further noted that the email message was not from the vice president himself but was an internal message between Searchlight employees. A representative of the Lightstone campaign, however…”
Harry turned to Mike.
“I had our staff in Pittsburgh provide a statement while you were talking to the cops. Hugh Jamison is constructing a poll to determine how we should play this after today—above the fray or righteous indignation. He’ll have his recommendations by noon tomorrow.”
Between Julian Mellow’s manipulations, including, perhaps, the emerging Searchlight scandal, and the machinations of his own campaign, he sometimes wondered if he couldn’t just hole up at his place in Pennsylvania and wait out the remaining nine days, confident that events would churn along without him. Given the criticism of his wooden campaign style, absence of common touch and lack of humor, perhaps it would do his numbers good.
“…has indicated that Senator Lightstone is deeply troubled by these latest allegations, viewing them as one more example of the, quote, arrogance and self-dealing that have typified the Nessin administration for the past four years, unquote. I believe we have a report from Peter Applebaum, our financial correspondent in New York. Peter?”
“Al, I’m standing outside Searchlight’s New York headquarters in lower Manhattan.” Applebaum was also bundled against the chilly night, black leather gloves holding the microphone and adding a sinister touch to the story. “Victor Carron, the chief investment officer of Searchlight, has denied that he ever sent an email referencing the vice president’s account. Earlier we caught up with him as he was leaving this building on Broad Street in Manhattan’s financial district.”
A small, understandably anxious-looking man emerged from the revolving doors in front of the building, surrounded by several other suit-and-tied men. As he made his way to a waiting car, a mic was thrust into his path. He regarded it like an asp. “Is it true, Mr. Carron, that the vice president asked you to shift investments from energy to media?” He shook his head, continued toward the curb, then stopped and turned. “It is absolute nonsense. I never heard from the vice president, and if I had, I would have immediately notified the Federal Elections Board…” One of Carron’s associates pulled him away from the mic and whispered something in his ear, after which he turned briefly back to the camera and said, “No comment.”
“He looks like he’s lying,” Mike said gleefully.
“You always look bad when you’re ambushed like that. I’ve been on the receiving end a few times. From the public’s point of view, ‘No comment’ is like taking the fifth—you might as well announce ‘Guilty as charged.’”
Peter Applebaum was back live. “In a Masters Broadcasting exclusive, we have obtained Searchlight’s most recent quarterly perfor
mance results, which have not yet been sent to clients. According to this report, Searchlight did indeed move funds out of energy and into media stocks. Our own analysis reveals that the vice president’s investments surged a whopping 32 percent as a result, or eighteen million dollars, because of the move. Now, this does not mean that the trades were illegal, or that they were directed by the vice president. But they do raise serious concerns about the timing, and whether Evan Smith had any knowledge—or should I say, foreknowledge, of the moves.”
“It’s an October Surprise,” Mike said, reaching for his cell phone. “A fucking October Surprise. I waited my entire goddamn career for one of these. I need to get you some airtime right away.”
“I don’t want to look like an ass if the story goes nowhere.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll run with the drilling-in-our-precious-national-parks angle on the energy side and kowtowing-to-big-media on the other side. They’re always so high-and-mighty about protecting the environment and fighting for the little guy. No matter what happens on the blind trust front, we’ll show them up for the hypocrites they are. And oh by the way, these guys in the Nessin administration have a way of playing fast and loose with our elections laws. This is gold, you can’t buy publicity like this.”
At that, Harry had to smile, thinking of Julian Mellow.
Chapter 52
Julian Mellow stood in the back of the rec room at the Malcolm X Children’s Center in East Harlem, a converted synagogue, of all things. The room was swarming with print journalists, crews from every network news organization, Lightstone campaign advisers, local community leaders and, crowded in the front, sitting cross-legged on the floor before Marcella Lightstone, about a dozen honest-to-goodness children. She was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a children’s book, in an elegantly fluid voice.
Julian wanted a word with Marcella, who was more accessible than her husband now that the campaign had staggered into its final, blitzkrieg phase. He preferred to speak in person, mistrusting phone lines when national politics were involved, but he didn’t want her coming to his apartment or office, nor did he want to go to her townhouse, now that her every movement was shadowed by the Secret Service and, more often than not, the media. A chance meeting at a public event would raise few if any eyebrows.
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