Lame Ducks
Page 6
government, and if you’re not a liar, you’re a fucking idiot.”
“You know what I’m living off of?” Casper asked.
“You’re awful proud of it, clearly.”
“I recorded a pop album when I was 13. I didn’t spend any of the money. I got my dad’s lawyer to set up a trust fund for me.”
“You didn’t spend any of it?”
“OK, I bought one thing with it. A scooter.”
“You must have been the prince of your boarding school.”
Casper chewed thoughtfully. “You know what’s the worst thing about money?”
“The women, the power, the cars, the influence, the luxury?”
“I’m being serious.”
Simon motioned for him to continue. The sun was gone and its light was fading. It was getting chilly.
“Money makes you think you don’t have to care about anyone around you. You look at people and just see rodents.”
“When did that change for you?” Simon asked.
Casper tossed the crusts of his sandwich into the sink. “Who said it changed?”
They watched a movie, a buddy comedy that neither of them laughed at. They got the opiate effect they were looking for, though, busying their minds just enough with the inane happenings on the screen that they forgot for a moment all about what they had involved themselves in.
As Simon left, Casper paused at his door. “Thanks,” he said.
“For what?” Simon asked, embarrassed, though he knew what for. Casper just shook his head shyly, rumpled his hair, stole another look at Simon, and closed the door.
Simon asked for the following Monday off work, and he and Casper took a trip up to Sacramento so they could get information from one of the speaker’s staffers. They decided Simon should do the flirting, since he wasn’t famous. “Plus, I’m better looking,” Simon said.
Toting a briefcase they had found last minute at a thrift store, Simon walked into the speaker’s office with the intention of scouting a young staffer. He got lucky; there was a girl manning the reception desk.
“Hi, how are you doing?” Simon asked her with his best lobbyist smile.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I was hoping if the speaker had a free minute today I might grab him, actually.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tyler Peterson,” Simon said. “I’m with the Center for Californian Prosperity.”
“Can I ask what it’s about?” Her demeanor was strictly professional. Simon would have to really lay on the charm.
“Yes, we’re an organization that studies the effects of pro-growth policies in California.”
“Hm,” she said. “I’ll have to see what’s available.”
“Take your time. I’ll just have a seat. What did you say your name was?”
“I’m Jennifer,” she smiled.
“Nice to meet you.” Simon looked at a bronze eagle perched on a shelf on the wall. Next to it was a portrait of the speaker. His face was tanned and creased and plastered over with a cheesy grin, wispy hair and what must have been a prosthetic chin. “You don’t have a water cooler or anything do you?”
“Um, yes. I can get you a cup of water.”
“Thank you so much, it’s just been so dry lately.”
“Do you live here in Sacramento?”
“Davis, actually,” Simon said. “You from here?”
Jennifer continued ostensibly to peer at the speaker’s calendar. Simon wondered what to do if this guy actually did have some free time. “I’m from the South Bay, but I wanted to get into government,” she answered.
“This is the place for that, I guess.” Simon downed his water and approached the desk, leaning over onto his elbows. “How’s it looking?” He gave her a suggestive smile, keeping his eyes on her as she looked at the calendar.
“Well,” she looked at him, hesitantly returning the smile. “He may have some time tomorrow.”
“That’s fine,” he said softly. “I’ll be staying here tonight.”
“Ok. How about right after lunch?”
“That’s great,” he said. “Listen, I don’t know what there is to do here in town. Anything fun happening later?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” she said shyly.
“What if you give me your number, then I can call you later and we can figure something out?”
“Okay,” she smiled. “Well, how about you just leave me your card.”
“Okay,” Simon agreed. He pantomimed looking in his suit jacket for a card, then patted his pants. “Dammit. I left my cards at the hotel.”
“It’s ok.” Jennifer wrote down her number on a sticky note and held it out on her index finger. He smiled and walked out.
“How did it go?” Casper asked, once Simon was back to the car.
“Terrible. She’s not very cute.”
“Well?”
“We’re good. She’s meeting me for a drink later.”
“What am I going to do?” Casper asked.
“Daydream about whales. I don’t know.”
Simon met up with Jennifer. Casper dropped him off and went back to the hotel, where he read the paper and went for a swim. He expected Simon to call him and ask for a ride, but he walked in around 11:30 slightly buzzed as Casper was writing out a strategy.
“How did you get home?” Casper asked.
“Took a cab.”
“Well?”
“Got what I needed. At least I think I did. Let’s listen to the tape to make sure we got it. I had to buy her three drinks before she started talking. Then she got all droopy-eyed on me when I said I was leaving. The lonely life of an intern.”
“Play the tape.”
“Just a second.”
Simon rewinded past a bunch of corny jokes and a section where he was playing billiards alone.
“Where was she here? Is this just you?” Casper asked.
“She said she just wanted to watch.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Ok, I think this is it. She told me that Ardman took the speaker on a junket to Cozumel.”
“Out of the country even?” Casper remarked.
“Guess so. There was also a gift certificate to a fur shop so he could buy a gift for his wife. What’s-her-face didn’t know the amount though.”
“That’s here on tape?”
“Yeah, right here. Did you hear that?”
The speaking was audible, but barely comprehensible above the din of the bar.
Casper took the tape recorder and put it in his bag.
“Can I get a ‘good job?’” Simon demanded.
“Good job.”
Simon made coffee and got ready for the drive back to LA.
What happens when this is all over, Simon contemplated from the passenger seat. He was an editor now, a path he hadn’t ever planned. It meant stability, but it also meant being stuck behind a desk. Evolving into someone who repurposed all his free time into trying to wind the little hand back on the forty hours he gave to the guy signing his paycheck. He imagined the story coming out, the bill dying with a whimper, and Casper receding into the margins of notoriety. He remembered reading somewhere that asphyxiation felt like falling asleep. He imagined the weight of LA’s inhabitants dragging it into the ocean, everyone too self-involved to notice, texting each other underwater. He was swimming, swimming, swimming.
“I’m not going to carry you in,” he heard Casper saying to him, waking him up. They were outside Simon’s apartment. Simon loosed his necktie and wiped the sweat from his collar, grabbed his bag, and went inside.
They waited for almost three weeks for the bill to be introduced. Simon already had a reporter in mind: a freelancer he knew from a conference. He would give him a copy of the tape under condition of total anonymity. When this hit the press, the speaker would look bad, it would scandalize the bill, and they would have to
wait at least an election cycle before broaching the topic again. Ideally, the governor would be able to capitalize on the scandal and make himself look good by pointing out how bad the bad guys look.
The governor’s office put out a press release about the bill, outlining the dangerous effects of privatizing the state’s water and highlighting some of the less transparent parts of the bill. The release was careful not to reveal what definitive action the governor might take, however.
Simon searched online and found a video interview with the governor on a Sacramento news station.
“This is a shameless cash grab by cynical people who want to raid one of the last common resources that are left,” he told the reporter, wind slightly ruffling his brown hair. The governor had a bit of a double chin. He spoke intelligently and with an unshifting stare. “We don’t see the benefits of the market when consumers don’t have choices, and this is what we would get in this situation. If you think you’re getting charged too much for water, are you going to hire a different company to re-plumb your house to get water from a different reservoir? You can’t. You don’t have that option. They stand to make billions and billions of dollars by gouging taxpayers for a resource that is not only vital but already belongs to everyone. It’s unconscionable.”
The news station showed a rebuttal from the speaker, who confidently proclaimed that the governor was obstructing the creation of thousands of jobs that would come along with this bill. He also predicted that the average consumer’s water bill would actually come down because of the increased efficiency of allowing the private sector to manage it. Simon took a screen shot of the speaker’s face, printed it out, and threw it in the trash.
“I’ve got bad news,” Simon heard from the blocked number that called his office phone. He met up that night with