“What happened, Tommy?”
“You’ve seen it all, more clearly than I could. Someone apparently took a couple of shots at me and hit Johnny Dale by mistake.”
“Did the state police order you not to visit Mr. Dale in the hospital?”
“The last time I heard visiting the sick was a corporal work of mercy.”
“Do you think that Senator Crispjin was involved in the assassination attempt?”
“Certainly not. I repeat in case some careless journalist tries to misquote me, certainly not.”
I tiptoed upstairs, all the women in my family were sound asleep. I went down to our basement workroom, found the Bushmill’s bottle and poured myself a moderate amount—that is a full glass.
I sipped at it slowly, put my feet up on the desk, and tried to think.
The phone rang.
“Thomas Moran.”
“Rodgers Crispjin.”
“Senator,” I said politely. “It’s good of you to call.”
“I want you to know,” he spoke quickly and in an uncertain voice, “I had nothing to do with that terrible event in Springfield. Nothing whatever.”
“I know that, Senator. I’ve said it at every opportunity.”
“I know. I appreciate that. I don’t know who would do something like that.”
“Perhaps your good friend Bobby Bill?”
“I doubt it. I thought I had put an end to that nonsense back in the spring. He denies it though he’s not a very good liar.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“I just wanted you to know that I had nothing to do with it.”
“I appreciate your calling, Senator.”
“Yes.”
The poor clown did not know how to end the conversation.
“Good luck, Senator.”
“Hmn, oh yes.”
He didn’t say either “thank you” or “good-bye.”
I put my feet back on the desk, sipped some more of my whiskey, and thought some more. Why was Senator Crispjin so eager to persuade me of his innocence, almost beg me to absolve him? I didn’t get it.
Then I had an idea.
I called the Ambassador’s house.
“O’Malley’s. Rosemarie.”
“Tommy here. Is the Ambassador still awake?”
“Yes indeed. Here he is—you were wonderful, by the way. The angels were taking care of you.”
“And your psychic granddaughter.”
“Witches run in our family. Every other generation.”
Had I interrupted love-making? At their age? Well, why not?
“Hi, Tommy, you were splendid—lots of votes!”
“I had a phone call from the Senator a few moments ago. He was scared.”
“Really? How interesting!”
“He wanted to insist that he had nothing to do with the little affair down in Springfield.”
“You’ve already said that several times.”
“I know and I’ll say it tomorrow.”
“Good! Our little ad becomes all the more important.”
“He seemed to be in fear for his own life.”
“Why would he feel threatened?”
“Because somehow it was suggested to him that if anything happened to me, he was roadkill.”
“Hmm … Well, he never was in any danger as far as I know.”
“He believes he was.”
“How interesting … You remember what your good friend Joe Goebbels said?”
“I wasn’t alive to meet the man, but didn’t he say something like if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one?”
“Yeah. Same thing is true of a bluff.”
I paused to absorb what was being said.
“I understand … Sleep well, Mr. Ambassador.”
“You too, Senator.”
“The Senator called me last night to express his sympathies and to assure me that he had no part in the attempted assassination yesterday. I thanked him and said I was absolutely certain that he did not.”
That was my first statement in the morning when we walked out of our house at 8:30 to bring the kids to school. My good wife was with me and she looked terrible. I imagined that I did too.
“Tommy, how do you feel this morning?”
“Scared.”
“Me too,” Mary Margaret agreed.
“You’re going ahead with your scheduled campaign appearances?”
“Of course.”
“Is that wise?”
“I have written in my book which is appearing in the book stores today that our contemporary uncivil politics will eventually lead to violence. There are some Americans who imagine they hear God telling them to liquidate the bad guys. The violence this summer could be the tip of the iceberg.”
“We’ve tracked the bullet, if you hadn’t turned away when you did, it would have hit right above your eye.”
“We’re not heroes,” I said firmly, “but we’re not going to run away either. Now we gotta get our daughters to school.”
The young folk were solemn faced.
“We’re not quitting either,” Mary Rose intoned.
“Like totally,” the other two agreed.
So we began again our marathon race through the Chicago Metropolitan Area—The Oak Brook mall, Operation PUSH (several times), Black churches in Chicago, Maywood, and Joliet. A parish priest in Hinsdale warned us that if we tried to receive the Eucharist at his church, he would refuse it. Dolly issued a statement that we had no intention of making such an effort. However, we would greet commuters at the Hinsdale station that morning and evening. The cameras were there to catch the hundreds of folk who pushed their way to shake our hands. Then up to North Chicago for a rally at a Hispanic community center (with kids who did their homework in the van, up and back). Our final stop was a prayer service at a Black church in Waukegan. Then, in a fearsome thunder shower we drove back to Chicago, the kids finishing up their homework and my wife and I trying to nap.
We were surrounded by security everywhere—state police, county police, city police and of course the Reliables. I didn’t mind their constant presence one bit because I was still scared. My wife turned fatalistic. “If they’re going to get us, they’re going to get us. This is a country that kills presidents. Why not kill a few senatorial candidates too?”
I saw no need to tell her about my late night conversation with her father. I suspect she already knew.
Then the Ambassador himself was in trouble.
CHAPTER 14
FEDS INVESTIGATE TOMMY’S IN-LAW
Reports leaking out of the United States Attorney’s Office suggest that the Feds are taking a hard look at Tiny Tommy’s mysterious campaign fund, one about which he pretends to know nothing. His father-in-law, Charles O’-Malley, whose claim to be an ambassador is forty years out of date, is apparently running the fund with the same recklessness he has demonstrated in his years as a sensationalist photographer. Indictments are expected even before the election.
The Ambassador appeared on television with his own rebuttal.
I’m Chuck O’Malley. I never call myself ambassador, well, hardly never. I am, however, an unpaid member of the senior executive service of the State Department with the title of Ambassador. I’m called in several times a year for consultation. Now that the secret is out, I think the Administration will probably get rid of me. As for journalism, I’ll compare my Pulitzer prizes with Mr. Schlenk’s any time he wants. So far he is shut-out. As for the campaign fund, Mr. Elihu Kunkel, formerly chairman of the National Election Commission and a card-carrying Republican, is monitoring the fund. Every day. If the U.S. Attorney is interested in anything more than engaging in campaign leaks, I invite him to come into my office tomorrow morning and take a copy of our books with him.
He then called the U.S. Attorney and asked him if he were familiar with the libel laws. That worthy denied that any investigation was “under contemplation.” The Ambassador then demanded that he come and look at the book
s anyway.
“We’re not in the business of clearing people of charges that have not been made.”
“You’d better be in the business of protecting yourself from a libel suit. Bring all your retard accountants to look at the books. My attorneys are ready to seek relief.”
“I am not responsible for Mr. Schlenk’s reports.”
“That would make an interesting point of law, sir.”
The Ambassador was bluffing again of course.
And he won. The State Department confirmed his role, said that he was a very distinguished diplomat, and denied that they were thinking of removing him. The U.S. Attorney showed up at his office and said, after a day of inspection, that he wished all campaign funds were kept in such neat order.
“Incorrigible,” Rosie said to me. “He’s been that way since he was ten.”
None of this interfered with our manic campaign. Tommy, his head reeling with ideas, was unable to sleep at all. But he was still the cool, charming little Mick whom everyone loved.
It’s odd that I’m the only one talking about issues in this campaign. My opponent’s ads affirm that he is experienced and mature, allegations which I will hardly deny. There is also a hint in a lot of discussion in the media that I am inexperienced and immature. My years of defending the poor and the innocent apparently don’t count. But that is not what the campaign should be about—it’s about the economic royalists, Big Oil, Big Insurance, and Big Pharma. It’s about corporate America, the rich and the super rich are taking money from the poor and the middle class and giving it, with the help of the Republican party, to the rich, to CEOs who earn a hundred and forty million dollars after they’re forced out of a company when it’s losing money. It’s about defending pensions from corporate bankruptcy tricks and your private property from eminent domain to put up Wal-Marts. It’s about immigration reform which puts an end to the senseless death of the poor but ambitious in the deserts of the southwest, it’s about recognizing the importance of the contribution of Mexican Americans to our national culture. Even if my opponent won’t debate me on these issues, I am disappointed that he acts as though they don’t exist.
The talk, short and to the point, always won big applause. The Daily News called Tommy an interesting and exciting candidate, one that combined old though still important issues with a challenging new political style. They had already told Dolly that they would endorse us the week before the election. Lee Schlenk had already told his avid readers that an endorsement from such a “liberal” sheet and two dollars would get you a ride on the Chicago Transit Authority. I was pretty sure that he had an impact only on those who had made up their mind months ago they were going to vote for the incumbent. Tommy was less optimistic.
“OK, he appeals to the cement heads. But there are a lot of them out there and they enjoy it when Schlenk ridicules the smart young punk.”
Tommy was fading, not fast exactly, but fading just the same, like a man in whom illness is slowly transforming itself into death. The assassination attempts, the tsunami of attack ads, the ceaseless contemptuous battering from the Examiner, the threat to Chucky, were wearing my poor dear man out.
“I hope I can hold out till it’s over,” he told me after a particularly dazzling performance at a rally in the town of Harvard in McHenry County. He seemed resigned to defeat, though the Daily News Poll showed us trailing only one percentage point, 48 percent to 47 percent among “likely” voters and taking three out of five of the voters who had not yet made up their minds.
“We’re trying to win the imbeciles who haven’t made up their mind because they don’t know what the election is about … And they think I’m immature and inexperienced.”
I suspected he was right. But I insisted that we were going to win easily because of the Latino voters who would vote for the first time and whom the pollsters could not persuade to respond to questions.
“That’s a leap of faith,” he said with a sigh.
It was of course.
There wasn’t much physical love in those hot hectic days. There wasn’t any time for it and we were both too tired. A hint perhaps of what would happen when we moved to the Beltway.
We scored some points at the mall in Naperville.
“How come you guys are in Naperville tomorrow morning?” Mary Alice Quinn of Channel 3 asked me in a late afternoon phone call to our headquarters.
“Why not? It’s on our schedule. The book store wants Tommy to sign some of his books.”
“You know that old stuff and nonsense will be there about the same time?”
“Sure, so what?”
I didn’t know it. Neither did anyone else on our team. I grabbed for the paper that had the schedule of Crispjin.
“Kind of an interesting accident, isn’t it?”
“We get there a half hour earlier. The Senator is at that bank, naturally.”
“Their paths might cross?”
“Tommy might even give him an autographed copy of his book, huh?”
“We’ve discussed that possibility.”
Which we hadn’t at all, as Mary Alice well knew.
“Great visual, huh?”
“If someone over there sees the conflict, they won’t show.”
“I’m not about to tell them,” she assured me. “You guys gonna win?”
“No doubt about it.”
The HQ was frantically active. Our phone banks were going strong as we tried to build up precinct organizations in key suburban precincts. Ric, Joe, and the incomparable Dolly were each dashing around with sheaves of paper in their hands. Well, we looked like professionals anyway.
Then Tommy ambled in from an interview on a PBS station. Our workers cheered him. They all thought we were going to win. We couldn’t let them down.
I gave him the signal that I wanted to talk to him.
“You summon me, wife of my youth?”
“And your middle age and old age too … You want to give an autographed copy of your book to Senator Crispjin?”
“What a grand idea!” he said, looking cheerful again. “Here is a copy of my new book about the decline of civility, about you as a matter of fact.”
“Don’t you dare say that!”
We huddled with Joe, Ric, and Dolly.
“Funny,” Dolly said, grinning happily. “The book store wants you to show up maybe an hour early. They’ve had tons of calls about autographs.”
“Tell them we’ll be there at nine-thirty,” I said.
“Suppose they’re wrong,” Tommy frowned. “Suppose no one is there.”
“They know their own business.”
“Should we give Mary Alice a heads-up?” I asked Dolly.
She thought about it for a minute.
“We’re scheduled for ten-thirty, right? We’re getting there at nine-thirty, right? Tell Mary A. that we’ll be there at ten. They’ll arrive in the middle of our triumph.”
“We need more triumphs,” my husband agreed.
When my poor dear man gets whimsical, I know he needs a good night’s sleep.
“Does anyone know,” Joe McDermott asked, “how close that First Bank of Naperville is to the book store?”
Dolly checked with a phone call.
“Maybe thirty yards.”
“We’ll need some mariachi sound?” Ric suggested.
“We don’t take the kids out of school!” I said. “That would look terrible!”
“We’ll not be able to keep Tina away. Maybe we can dig up some local talent to join you guys. If the Senator hears the noise, it’ll drive him crazy.”
“If they had any sense,” Tommy said, immune to our glee, “they’d cancel out. He doesn’t want to be seen in public with me.”
“Then our TV friends will really go after him.”
“I suppose.”
He needed some loving. I would have to seduce him. Fortunately that’s not very difficult. I knew that. I just hadn’t had the time to do anything about it in the last couple of weeks. What a r
otten excuse. Then and now.
So the next morning he was in a glowing mood when we drove out in our armored van to Naperville, a sprawling former farming center and now a quintessential suburb. I’d choke to death if I ever had to live there. Nonetheless there were hundreds of potential voters waiting in front of the book store. They cheered when they saw him.
“Readers and voters!” Tommy said enthusiastically.
I should note that he was not the only one who enjoyed a good night’s sleep after our little romp.
Most of the people in the crowd had already purchased their books. More royalties. We were almost broke.
“Good of all of you to come!” Tommy began with his most radiant Irish smile. “This book is what the election is about. We observe the end of civilized discourse in campaigns and the increase in attack ads. That makes our politics more angry and even more dangerous. I told myself when we began the race that its goal was to offer an example of a civil campaign. I think I’ve kept that promise. Now I want to WIN! So I urge you to read the book and, if you agree with me get out and vote early and often!”
Cheers interrupted my fantasy recollection of the pleasures of the previous night. I wanted more.
“I brought along some mariachi music to entertain you while I’m signing books. My wife Maria Margarita is the one with the red hair and Tina Sanchez, the wife of my campaign manager Ric Sanchez, does the fiddle. The kids are in school where they belong on weekdays, even if there is an election campaign. They don’t agree of course!’
Not terribly funny but they loved it.
Mary Alice and her cameraman arrived fifteen minutes into the signing.
Tommy smiled, laughed, and joked with his adoring public.
“They say they’ll have no trouble selling out the four hundred books,” Dolly whispered in my ear at one of our breaks.
“Save one for Rodge.”
I calculated rapidly. At 15 percent royalty that was $3.25 for each book, over twelve hundred dollars for this signing. That was nice, though it wouldn’t pay for the repairs to our house because of the bomb damage. The insurance company was denying liability because the explosion wasn’t in the house but outside of it. They would pay eventually but they wanted to cheat us out of as much as they could.
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