by David Grace
Like an actor readying himself for the director to shout “Action,” Grantham straightened up and cleared his face.
“The best way to solve our problems is to get the government out of our way and let the American people do what they do best, create jobs through their innate spirit of enterprise and hard work.” Grantham paused and stared expectantly at Virgil.
“I’d wonder how electing someone on a platform of doing nothing was going to make things better.”
“The government doesn’t create jobs. People create jobs,” Grantham snapped. Quinn kept his mouth shut.
“All right, how about this? – We need to set up job-training centers to get our young people ready for the good jobs that already exist.”
“Sounds like a good idea. How many kids will your program be able to handle?”
“None. We don’t have the money to do anything like that. Jeremy, add the job-training thing to the list for the next focus group.”
“Already got it, Mayor,” Knowlton said, scribbling on his smart phone.
“What do you think about this one, Quinn? – We need to stop thinking of it as a minimum wage and start thinking of it as a living wage.” Grantham said it all with a righteous look pasted on his face. “The minimum wage should be set at a level where forty hours of labor will provide a worker with enough money to house and clothe and feed his family without requiring any government assistance.” Grantham gave Virgil a questioning stare.
“I’d want to know what you’d raise it to.”
The Mayor waved his hand as if shooing an annoying fly.
“You never want to give people too many details,” Jeremy explained almost apologetically. “That just divides your supporters and gives the other side something specific to attack. You want to limit your proposals to vague generalities so that each voter who agrees with you can fill in the specifics in a way that pleases him.”
“Besides which,” Grantham broke in, “paying people more than they’re worth only encourages laziness. The market should determine wages not the government. If people need more money they should work a second job, or a third, and if they’re too lazy to do that then the government shouldn’t bail them out because the bottom line is that they deserve to be poor. That won’t play in this town so keep it just between us.”
“Then you’re not going to advocate raising the minimum wage?” Virgil asked.
“That depends on how it plays in Jeremy’s focus groups.” Virgil followed Grantham’s gaze to his media advisor.
“It’s all about the math,” Knowlton said, slipping into “professor” mode. “We know the city’s demographics – age, sex, education, race, occupation, income level, educational level, party registration and so forth. Our polls and focus groups help us tie a voting profile to each demographic unit for each issue. How many white-female non-college-educated voters are there between eighteen and thirty-one? How many of them are likely to vote for a candidate who wants to increase the minimum wage? How many are not likely to vote for a candidate who wants to increase the minimum wage? What percentage of each demographic is likely to actually show up at the polls?
“We crunch all those numbers and come up with a likely number of net votes that each demographic will cast for our candidate if he promises to increase the minimum wage and how many he’ll get if he doesn’t promise to increase the minimum wage?
“We do the same calculation for all of the other demographic units and we come up with a likely net vote gain or loss on each of the top eight campaign issues on our focus groups’ list – job training, minimum wage, more police officers, higher or lower taxes, and so forth. Crunching those numbers gives us a road map of the issues and positions that will be most likely to gain us the greatest net amount of votes. Of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds,” Knowlton said with an apologetic smile.
Virgil didn’t know what to say.
“It’s the overlaps,” Jeremy said, mistaking Virgil’s silence for interest. “People aren’t about just one thing. They may be for job training but against raising the minimum wage or for both but against hiring more police. If we’re on the right side of three issues and the wrong side of two which way will the voter go? That complication forces us to figure out which positions are the control issues, the ones that are so important that being right or wrong on them will gain us or lose us that person’s vote no matter how many other issues they agree with us on.
“Let me tell you, it gets incredibly complicated. It took three professors of applied mathematics six months to craft the algorithm that we use to arrive at our final numbers.”
“Does it actually work?”
“The latest correlation of our predictions with real-world results is at 84.2%,” Knowlton said proudly.
“What if your numbers and the focus-group positions conflict with the candidate’s own philosophy?” Virgil asked, the words slipping out before he could get a grip on his tongue.
“The first thing that every candidate learns,” Jeremy said sternly, “is that he not only has a license to lie. He has an obligation to lie. Every candidate’s first duty is to get elected. What he or she actually believes is irrelevant if he doesn’t get elected. That’s Job One. In order to get elected you have to receive a majority of the votes cast. To do that, you have to craft the right positions on the right issues. Once you win, then you can do what you want.”
“How often do candidates refuse to do that, to lie?”
“They almost all refuse to lie, at first. They’ve spent their lives being told that honesty is the best policy, so we have to beat that out of them. Think of it like army boot camp.
“You get a bunch of kids who’ve been told that it’s wrong to kill people and then you have to make them unlearn that and get them to a place where they can point a gun at some stranger and blow their head off and then march over the hill and do it again. Teaching someone the importance of lying is easy compared to training them to kill. Hell,” Knowlton said with a little laugh, “if a good Mormon like Mitt Romney can embrace the principal of exercising his License To Lie then pretty much anyone can. You know, Marshal,” Knowlton said, giving Quinn an appraising look, “maybe we should put you into one of our focus groups. I think we might get some good insights from your point of view.”
“Talk to me after we’ve caught that gang of mad-dog killers I’m chasing,” Virgil replied, then turned back to the Mayor. “Which is why I asked to talk with you, Mr. Mayor. We’ve developed some strong leads and I think we may be closing in on these guys, but we need your help.”
“You and Captain Tanner were the keys to stopping them. I was very sorry to hear about her death,” Grantham said after a little pause and with no apparent distress, “but with you out of commission and her gone, I don’t see how the Felony Fugitive squad is going to be able to get the job done. Everything is a numbers game, Quinn, and the numbers are telling me that we need to move this investigation over to Major Crimes.”
“That would be a mistake,” Virgil said more firmly than he had intended. To hell with it. He took a step toward Grantham, deliberately invading the Mayor’s personal space. “Firstly, as you can see I’m not out of commission. I’m ready to go back to work today.”
Grantham gave Virgil a skeptical scan from head to toe.
“Maybe, maybe not. What’s your second point?”
“We identified one of the men in the gang, a Paulie Sturdevant. He’s dead, but we know one of his friends, Latwan Monroe, who we think could be another member. Right now we’re beating the bushes looking for Monroe and we’re also looking at his known associates. Grabbing him up could break open the entire case. Once we get him, at the very least we’ll be able to tell the media that we’ve neutralized two of the killers and that we’re actively on the trail of the rest.”
“Sounds like a lot of hope and prayers to me. Do you have a third reason I should order the Department to let you go back to work?”
“If you don’t let us keep the case and
put me in command, the investigation’s going to be under the control of Ray Rogers and he–”
Grantham held up his hand. “Enough said on that point, but you still look like shit. How do I know you’re up to doing the job?”
“These assholes killed my partner,” Virgil said, his voice turning harsh. “They’re going down for it or I’ll die trying.”
Grantham gave Virgil another long stare, then smiled.
“You know what, Marshal? I believe you. I’ll tell the Chief to put you in command. Just make sure of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You get those bastards before election day or I will ruin your life in ways that you cannot imagine.”
“Deal,” Virgil said, extending his hand. This time the Mayor took it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The girl was a hard twenty-two, her pudgy face holding chocolate eyes that could cut glass. Her ass was a little big and before too long her size 42 tits would be heading south, but that was the way Latwan liked them. “I don’t want none of them girls with chicken legs,” he’d say whenever Paulie ridiculed his taste in women.
“Hey there, baby,” Latwan said, shoving a c-note into her palm with one hand and squeezing her boob with the other, “bring me a Maker’s Mark. Don’t let that bartender give me no Walmart shit ‘cause I’ll know the difference, and I’ll cut his fucking throat if he does.”
“You got it, honey.”
Latwan smiled and slapped her ass as she walked away. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he told the flat-faced white guy next to him. “I’m gonna get me a piece of that. You see one you like you let me know and I’ll set you up.”
Latwan’s tablemate was Troy Warner, six-three with pink skin and eyes somewhere between gray and green depending on the angle of the light. He had done six years of a ten-year bit in Stateville back in Illinois before relocating to the Motor City where he’d robbed one jewelry store too many and ended up putting in another five at Saginaw which was where he’d met Latwan.
White and black inmates weren’t generally housed together but budget issues and over-crowding trumped all that. Warner and Monroe ended up sharing a cell for the last year of Latwan’s sentence and the first of Warner’s. Six months ago Troy had been released back into society and an hour ago Latwan had stopped him a block from his SRO hotel and offered to buy him a drink.
Troy gave the club a slow scan. The bar was packed two deep and fifty people jammed the tiny dance floor on the level below.
“I’ll let you know,” Troy half-shouted over the noise.
For a couple of minutes both men watched the lights flicker across the packed bodies then the girl arrived with Latwan’s drink.
“Here you go, baby,” she cooed, handing Latwan the glass. She watched uneasily as he took a sip then relaxed when he gave her a smile.
“That’s the right stuff,” he said, then slid his hand up the inside of her thigh. “You keep the change baby,” he said as his fingers rubbed up and down over her crotch. Her lips held a smile that never reached her eyes, but she made no move to turn away. “You come on back in a little while and bring me another one of these and bring another bottle of that fancy imported shit my friend’s drinking. He just got out of the joint and he needs to have a little fun.”
The waitress glanced at Troy’s blank face and empty eyes.
“Anything you want, baby,” she said and put Warner’s empty beer bottle on her tray while Latwan’s fingers continued to massage her crotch.
“Oh yeah, her and me gonna have us a party,” Latwan said as she disappeared into the crowd. “You wanna fuck her too? She looks like she can take both of us, no problem.”
“Plenty of pussy in here to go around,” Troy said, turning his gaze back to the crush of bodies below them.
“So, you got a tail?” Latwan asked.
“I did my whole bit. No paper on me,” Troy answered. “Otherwise, I couldn’t be hanging out here with you.”
Latwan nodded and took another swallow. He didn’t like working with guys who were on parole. There were too many ways they could fuck you up. Their PO could search their cribs anytime they wanted and if he found some shit they’d stuffed in their pocket from a job then they were fucked, and half the time they’d end up throwing you under the bus to get themselves a better deal. The cops had them by the balls. All they had to do was squeeze a little and a guy on parole would fuck you over to keep from goin’ back.
“Yeah, that’s good. Fuck ‘em.” Latwan crunched an ice cube and it made a sound like a shot. “You looking for work?”
“If the money’s right.”
Latwan liked the fact that Troy didn’t ask many questions. Guys who asked questions were probably on the snitch.
“Cash right away plus a share down the line when we move the stuff.” Latwan waited a minute then continued. “We split it five ways. The back end should be another five to ten each.”
“Federal?” Troy asked. Banks were insured by the FDIC which made robbing them a federal crime, which was bad. There was no time off for good behavior in Leavenworth.
“No. Houses, all civilians.”
“What kind of targets?”
“Country-club assholes. Coin collections, watches, paintings. Shit like that.”
Troy paused then gave Latwan a suspicious stare.
“There have to be a hundred guys who can do that. Why are you coming to me?”
Latwan sucked down the last of his drink and leaned close to whisper in Troy’s ear.
“This is a job where you got to be able to take care of business. No pussies allowed.”
Troy knew what that meant. You’d have to be deaf and blind not to have heard about the so-called Mad Dog home invasions. Scorched earth. No witnesses. “So, you up for it?”
“I brought you another round, baby,” the girl half shouted.
Latwan jerked back then relaxed when he saw that she was still five or six feet away. He smiled and she smiled back, handing him another bourbon and clunking a Beck’s on the table in front of Troy.
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Ramona.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Latwan told her, though it could have been ‘Bertha’ or ‘Agnes’ and he’d have said the same. “What time you get off here?”
“Anytime you want.”
“Now, that’s what I like to hear. You come on back in fifteen and you and me are gonna have a party. Here, this is for you.” Latwan lifted her tiny skirt and shoved a hundred-dollar bill under the Spandex at the edge of her crotch.
“You got it, baby,” she cooed and slipped back into the crowd.
Latwan’s big-toothed smile quickly slipped away and his face grew hard.
“So?”
“I get paid right after the job?”
“We split the cash five ways, five K, ten, whatever the target’s got.”
“So, maybe I only get a grand or two?”
“Do I look like I’m hurting?” Latwan gave Troy a quick peek at his roll of hundred-dollar bills.
Troy was silent for almost half a minute while he worked things out in his head.
“When do we do this thing?” he finally asked.
“First you gotta meet the boss. He picks the jobs and he’s gotta give you the OK.”
Troy thought about that for another few seconds, then nodded.
“All right. How’s it gonna work?”
“Give me your phone.”
Troy fumbled in his pocket and handed over a twenty-dollar burner. Latwan programmed his number into it and then reversed the process with his own phone.
“You see a call from ‘Chains’ that’s me. We got a job coming up in a few days, a week at the most. I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day and tell you where to go to meet the boss.”
Latwan returned Troy’s phone then stood when he saw Ramona wearing a black and yellow dress working her way toward him through the crowd.
“OK,” Latwan said, nodding
in the girl’s direction. “Pussy time. You sure you don’t want me to have Ramona fix you up with one of her friends?”
“I’ve got it covered,” Troy said.
Latwan shoved a c-note into Troy’s pocket. “Cab fare,” he said then bumped fists and disappeared into the crowd.
What the fuck am I gonna do now? Troy thought as a hollow, sick ache swelled in his gut.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Counting the Benjamin Latwan had given him Troy had a total of $143 and change and the shit-hole Hotel Mason was ninety-five dollars a week and his rent was due in two days. Not knowing where Latwan had been taking him or how the hell he was going to get back, Troy had paid attention when Latwan drove them to the club. He shoved the c-note a little deeper into his pocket and began the long walk home.
The Department of Corrections (Corrections, Troy thought, what a joke, as if keeping an animal in a cage corrected anything) didn’t even pretend that they were going to help him get a job when they let him out. Maybe if he had been on parole for some nice, safe crime like credit-card fraud or running a chop shop or some shit like that then maybe they’d have helped him find work in a warehouse or an auto-body shop, but he didn’t have a tail. No P.O. was checking up on him, making sure that he was showing up for work every day, walking the straight and narrow.
He was a fucking armed robber with convictions in two states and a jacket that said he was a suspect in nine murders that they hadn’t been able to take him to court on. Who was going to give him a job moving crates in their warehouse when anyone with half a brain would think that he’d probably only work there long enough to figure out how to rob the place? Who’d be crazy enough to hire a thief to deliver furniture to their customers’ homes and businesses? Even fucking McDonalds wouldn’t hire him to flip burgers at minimum wage.
Maybe I should check the cemeteries, see if they need any grave diggers, he thought. I guess they wouldn’t be worried about me stealing anything there. Except it’s Michigan and the ground is frozen half the year.