Lame Ducks

by Isaac Black

Casper for pizza.

  “They’re ditching the speaker.”

  “Who is?”

  “There are more people behind it. Who knows how many. Anyways, the word is that the speaker is too risky to sponsor the bill. He’s too suspicious.”

  “So what now?” Simon asked

  “The speaker is going to take his name off the bill. That way, even if the speaker’s ties are discovered, it won’t kill it.”

  “Great.”

  “Yep.”

  “So what now?” Simon asked. “Any chance the speaker has hard feelings and would come over to our side?”

  “He doesn’t have any hard feelings. He’s still in on the deal, just not as publicly now.”

  “Ok.” I was joking, dummy, Simon thought to himself.

  “We’ve got to sink the governor,” Casper said.

 

  Simon didn’t want anyone knowing his interest in the governor’s rest stop visits, so they decided they would take pictures themselves and email them anonymously to Meghan the intern. Simon knew which rest stop the governor favored, so they staked it out a few nights. He thought it was cute how Casper treated it like a campout—bringing snacks and sodas.

  Solomon eventually showed up, and they got the photos, with time stamps, of the governor going in and coming out forty-five minutes later as well as shots of the paramours. Simon found himself studying the photos later, trying to make out the expression on Governor Solomon’s face as he walked out of the restroom. He seemed like a good man. He had a family.

  Simon emailed them to Meghan through an email address invented just for that purpose. Two days later, her desk was cleared off.

  “Did you hear about Brad?” one of the other editors asked Simon before a meeting later that day. Brad was the government editor over Meghan.

  “No, what happened?”

  “Got let go. Rumor was that he was sexually harassing his intern. She’s gone, too. Probably quit.”

  “Says who?”

  “Well, Rinehard himself was involved. Guess he didn’t want a lawsuit, something like that.”

  Bullshit, Simon thought. Total bullshit. At the same time, he was glad he wasn’t the one fired. He had been getting headaches more frequently lately, he realized. He made a note to buy some acetaminophen that night.

  “We’ve got bad news,” Casper began the phone call.

  “Again?” Simon asked.

  “Even if we can get these photos of the governor out there, they’re now skipping Congress altogether and putting the issue to a referendum. Governor can’t veto that.”

  “Will they have the votes? Won’t there be groups opposing it?”

  “They’ve got the Sun behind it, as well as who knows how many corporations and people willing to shell out top dollar in ads for it. It’s a toss up, and I’m sure it’s not their first choice, but it’s going to be tough to kill.”

  “Are we over then?”

  “Not yet. I’ve got some other ideas, stuff I’m still working on. Thinking about going after Rinehard.”

  Simon got a bit of a chill. “You think we can?”

  “He’s getting reckless, throwing money around, not being very careful about it. He’s either desperate or just losing it. Either way, he’s vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable,” Simon repeated. His headache was coming back.

  As soon as the referendum was put on the ballot, Rinehard swiftly and gleefully exposed the governor, putting a picture of him leaving a rest stop hand in hand with a partner on the front page with headline: “GOVERNOR SOLOMON EMBROILED IN SEX SCANDAL.”

  At a press conference that night, the governor appeared exhausted, stammering through explanations. The news cameras mercilessly broadcast video of his ashen wife white-knuckling their child’s hand. Governor Solomon broke down crying eventually, waving away reporters and leaving his family to endure their scrutiny while he retreated.

  That was Thursday. On Friday Simon left work early because he couldn’t focus. He could only research Governor Solomon all morning. He had been an engineer before winning the mayorship of Culver City in his 40s, squeaked out a victory against an unpopular incumbent. Simon went to the beach with Casper. It was a perfect day—cloudless but not too hot, breezy but not windy, little smog but plenty of beautiful bodies in the water. And the water wasn’t too cold. They bought snow cones.

  The beauty of the beach for the duo was their total anonymity in broad daylight–Casper wasn’t very recognizable even without sunglasses on. That afternoon they blended in thoughtlessly with the masses of nondescript white guys with short hair and tanned torsos. Simon swam long enough to cool off, then lay on his towel next to Casper while the sea breeze dried his hair crispy with salt.

  He daydreamed of Governor Solomon, of his aborted first run at the governorship. He had been a popular mayor who had presided over a period of economic growth, but analysts reported that he didn’t have the political connects lining up behind him to get him the funds that he needed; he realized that soon after beginning his run. Simon daydreamed of the days ticking by, each one pushing him toward an unwinnable race, each one piling up campaign debt. Each day increasing the pressure to raise obstinate funds, pushing him closer to having to decide when to pull the plug.

  “Real or fake?” Casper asked too loudly.

  Simon snickered. “Fake.”

  “You think? They looked pretty real.”

  “Breast science has come a long way,” Simon said drowsily.

  He sat up, wondering about the moment that Solomon knew he had won. Four years in the making, four years of plotting in his spare time, of uncertainty, like a prison sentence, then to find out in one night that he had won. He had won by a comfortable margin. Even though the polls supported him, it’s never for sure.

  His wife of fifteen years would have been there. His kids would have been there, except for the youngest who would have slept through the excitement, too young to understand. His wife would have been thrilled, though she had probably never banked on being a political wife. It showed a little. Her skirtsuits never fit quite right. She was a little too plain, wore shoes that were a little too librarian, was a little too young to wear the pearls that she wore for formal occasions. She was an engineer’s wife, and Solomon an unlikely executive.

  But he made a good governor. It wasn’t until his second year that rumors began to surface. It’s impossible to see through all the layers that separated the public Governor Solomon from the private one, to even guess at his reaction to the rumors. Or his wife’s. One could guess what a rational person would think, but politics isn’t rational. It’s a delusion, an idea that whatever one does is right, especially the compromises that dilute one’s convictions. It requires surrounding oneself with similarly deluded people to prop you up and broadcast to the world your unerring virtue. The opacity of this delusion and the compartmentalization of one’s personality—maybe it alienated the engineer’s wife. She didn’t seem cut out for politics, but it wasn’t a choice she had made.

  Casper covered his back as best he could with sunscreen as Simon watched. He missed a spot, Simon observed, predicting a red, stinging triangle in the middle of his lower back as Casper turned over, smiling and content.

  “I’ll get it,” Simon offered finally, smiling as he rubbed the lotion into Casper’s back.

  They were drained by dusk, got food at different restaurants and met back up at Casper’s apartment, where they started watching a movie on TV. Casper called out the actors he had met.

  Simon woke up unexpectedly, not remembering having fallen asleep. The TV was haunting the room with a supernaturally bright infomercial. Casper was asleep too, sunglasses still hung from the collar of his shirt. He looked at his phone, glanced at the news. Governor Solomon was on suicide watch.

  Casper seemed happier in those days. He smiled more, started spending money a little more freely. He started texting and calling Simon with less paranoia. He was
less coy. The issue felt like a virus that had seeped now to the electorate, impossible to contain. Whether Casper felt somehow assured of victory or blissfully detached or just tired Simon couldn’t tell. Simon couldn’t rest, but he also couldn’t bring himself to interrupt Casper’s state of being with something so coarse as a question about what he was thinking.

  The next weekend they left the country, went to a house in Mexico belonging to Casper’s family. They sped through the squats of Tijuana and arrived by dusk Friday night. Margarita in hand Simon sloshily explored the villa as the sun descended into black waves. They settled in, Simon immediately planning to call in sick Monday if not Tuesday. Casper stayed up late that night walking along the foreign shore, but woke Simon up as he rose with the sun to cook breakfast for them.

  The Sun had begun gleefully savaging Governor Solomon, the saliva from Rinehard’s fangs smeared all over the newsprint. They ran a tabloid-esque photo of Solomon leaving his house ducking reporters, blocks of damning text boxing him in. Simon put off trying to figure out everything for another few days, deciding to figure it out once he got back to L.A.

  They punctuated their bouts of swimming with tacos and alcohol, blurring hours into afternoons. They stayed up late, going into town to holler at local girls in obnoxious Spanish. They shared a bed, sleeping in, sleeping on the patio, on the beach like savage idols. Simon got sunstroke, Casper got a hangover, but they deadened themselves again with pleasure.

  When it came time to email Rinehard and report himself sick with the flu, Simon took a shot of tequila, but his courage was only as deep as the warmth in his face.

  The vacation ended abruptly for Simon as he woke up late on a too-hot Tuesday morning. His mouth was dry, and he had diarrhea. He deemed the ocean too sticky for a swim today, so he went ahead and showered.

  “Hey Casper.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I’m not sure what you had in mind, but we should maybe talk about this bill that we once upon a time cared about stopping.”

  “We probably should,” Casper said dreamily.

  “Well.”

  “It’s under control,” Casper declared.

  “How exactly?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car. We should probably pack up, yeah?”

  “You’re in a hurry all of a sudden?”

  “Fine. I’ll tell you. It’s not going to pass,” he said, smiling.

  “Please elaborate.”

  “I’ve got emails. The top brass at Ardman was stupid enough to put their plans for gobbling up the rights to the whole state’s water in email.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Simon was more annoyed than usual with Casper’s caginess.

  “We get those emails to the media. They’re bad enough that no one is going to want to vote for the referendum.”

  “Well,” Simon paused. “I hope it works.”

  “It will work,” Casper said and swallowed hard.

  “Money wins elections. And guess which side has the most money. By a factor of a hundred.”

  “No, people will see through it,” Casper said, but then turned quickly to his room to pack.

  The drive back to Los Angeles was quiet and hot. Casper was being stingy with the AC. Simon tried vainly to sleep off his headache.

  Casper pulled another one of his disappearing acts that week. Simon was sick of it and immersed himself in pretending that his job wasn’t completely ridiculous. After a few nights, though, he got obsessively curious. Casper wasn’t at all assured of his plan; he knew that. Why he kept up the pretense, especially with him, his partner, gnawed at him.

  Maybe he wasn’t Casper’s only partner.

  He drove by Casper’s house that night, just to see what he could find. Nothing. He drove by the next night and parked down the street a bit. He had brought his laptop so he could do a little work without getting too antsy but didn’t open it. He sat in his car, sipping a corner store soda and watching Casper’s window.

  Casper walked by his curtains, and Simon thought he saw another shadow move. A man walked out of the complex and into an Audi. He drove off as Simon took down his license plate.

  A county records search at work the next day resulted in a name: Bryan Mason. A google search revealed his identity: assistant legislative director for the Speaker.

  He didn’t have much time to mull over why Casper was meeting with someone in the Speaker’s camp, as he got called into a meeting with Rinehard shortly after the discovery.

  “Johns, I know I’ve made you an editor, and one of the perks of being an editor is that you don’t do the grunt work anymore, but I want you to cover a movie premiere tonight.”

  “Sure.”

  Rinehard opened a bottle of whiskey. “Don’t be flattered. It’s because the producer of said movie doesn’t seem to think I run a good paper. He’s been vocal about that. For my part I don’t think he makes very good movies. I trust you’ll write the appropriate story about his premiere?”

  “Understood, Mr. Rinehard.”

  “Johns,” he barked as Simon turned around. “Call me Desmond,” he said with a soulless smile.

  The premiere was chaotic, more so than any he had been to. It was at Mann’s Chinese Theater, and security was understaffed. Fans were running amok; every so often, a brawny security guard pulled an enthralled girl off the red carpet.

  “I heard that Colin will sign any autograph,” a female fan was saying to another. Colin Winfree was the latest heartthrob in Hollywood, and his acting in this movie was supposedly atrocious. Simon hated to grant Rinehard any validity to his childish feud, but he didn’t mind so much being able to trash this event.

  “I heard Veronica Daly is going to crash the premiere,” said another female fan to her compatriot.

  “No!”

  Veronica Daly was a starlet who rose to fame quickly by way of her augmented looks and libertine reputation. She and Colin Winfree had dated briefly, though when she was arrested for shoplifting he ended things. Her attention seeking spiraled until she started getting roles as a novelty. Her public persona was erratic, which attracted spectators and the paparazzi in equal numbers.

  Simon left his notebook in his pocket, having already written more or less his story. He let the gawkers crowd him out, staring indifferently at the anonymous human wall blocking the floodlights in front of him. Suddenly the crowd turned in his direction and swam over him brandishing camera phones. “Is that really her?” someone asked. He turned and saw the mob swarm a girl who was suddenly covering her face and squinting. The poor souls on the other side of the red carpet rubbernecked morosely until a handful of reporters breached the velvet rope and ran across to shoot the starlet.

  “It’s not her,” announced a balding photographer who apparently had been close enough to hear the innocent girl’s protests. But by this time Colin Winfree’s limo had arrived, and he stepped out puzzled to see a spotty audience and plebeians treading the red carpet. The audience noticed him at the same instant like a flock of flying birds, and they rushed him with such enthusiasm that the velvet-draped stanchions tottered and then fell, leading Colin to recoil as fans groped his suit. The already agitated security guards jumped into the fray. People were thrown clear, Colin’s hair was mussed, and one girl ended up with a bloody nose. By the time Colin had made it through the media, doing at least one TV interview with hair akimbo before his publicist could spot it, police were arriving on the scene to investigate the dispute between the battered girl and the security guard who allegedly punched her.

  The rest of the cast and the producers showed up in turn, as well as the celebrity guests. The fans had simmered down now into an almost holy trance, the novices taking pictures of the stars as those wiser than they taught them the names of their subjects. Simon contrasted the fervor of the starfuckers, cheeks flush with genuine passion for their beloved, with the emptiness he saw behind the stars’ rehearsed smiles and taut cheeks. He intuited the reason
: they had no idols. “You’re press?” a thickneck in a suit asked him as he trailed in.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Press lounge, this way.”

  It was odd, but Simon followed him into an unoccupied booth with a few seats. He was beginning to suspect that his unusual accommodations may actually be in some way dangerous when two muscular men in t-shirts walked through the velvet curtain and demanded his wallet.

  Simon stammered for a second confusedly before one of them punched him hard in the ribs, and then they beat his body with their fists as he tried to scoot away from them. He curled up, wincing, as they landed four or five blows on his face and then walked out. They left him with his wallet.

  He sat for a minute, holding his head, then ran as fast as was comfortable to his car, ducking his eyes from the security guards who had shown him to his booth. He drove home, trying to figure out how to explain to Rinehard that he didn’t have a story, considering that Rinehard had just had him mugged. He hadn’t yet gotten to process the full significance of what had happened when Casper called him from his personal cell phone.

  “Where have you been?” Simon asked.

  “I need to talk,” Casper said.

  “I just got mugged.”

  “What?”

  “Not actually. I got beaten up. Rinehard’s thugs.”

  “Did they say they were?”

  “No.”

  “Listen, I’m being followed.” Casper said.

  “We need to lay low. Don’t call me anymore.”

  “He obviously knows that we’re both working on this. I may have gotten us in some deep shit poking around after Ardman. I don’t think it matters at this point if we call each other.”

  “But it’s easier for them to track our communication,” Simon said, slightly suspicious of Casper’s about-face on security. “One or both of our phones might be tapped.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m going to ask you one time and I can’t do anything but completely take you at your word. Know that I’m banking everything that’s important to me on your answer. Can I trust you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Call me from a pay phone.” Simon said.

  “What if your phone is tapped?”

  “Um, let me find the number to the payphone at my house. I’m almost there.”

  “Ok.”

  He drove his car into the reserved spot at his apartment parking lot. There was no one else around. It was about 10:30. He looked at his swollen face in his rearview mirror. In passing, a stranger might not know that he had just gotten thrashed. Like surgeons, those thugs. His headlights were shining on the cinder block wall in front of his parking space, and he listened in the cold night for an answer—would Rinehard kill him.

  He had poured himself a glass of whiskey and begun tending to his wounds when he heard a gentle knock at his door. He froze. The knock came again.

  “Johns?” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Simon Johns? A Mr. Rinehard sent a car for you.”

  “Who are you?” Simon