Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  There was Jacobi’s picture, looking uncomfortable in a tuxedo, standing next to Santino at some political dinner in Providence.

  Probing deeper, Jake found that Jacobi was a major financial backer of Santino’s, and had been since the Little Saint had first run for the state legislature, nearly half a century earlier.

  Studying all the information he could pull up on Jacobi, Jake wondered why Santino had suggested the man was good at plugging leaks. As far as the Internet was concerned, Bert Jacobi was a successful businessman, a philanthropist who donated generously to many Catholic charities, and a political ally of Senator Mario Santino. Nothing more. Nothing sinister.

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Jake mused, The political machine in Rhode Island has always had shadowy connections with organized crime. Is Jacobi Mob-related? There’s no mention of a police record, but that doesn’t mean much. Remembering his own childhood neighborhood, Jake knew that the top Mob people were seldom connected to anything that could be proven in court. Witnesses had a way of recanting, or disappearing, or being found dead on lonely highways.

  Good at plugging leaks. Jake suppressed an uneasy shudder of fear. Jacobi had to be poking into who leaked the energy plan. Either he himself or somebody he had hired.

  Damn!

  * * *

  Over the next several days Tomlinson became strangely evasive, hard to see or talk to in private. His personal secretary guarded access to the senator with a fierce loyalty. It’s as if I’ve come down with some disease and he doesn’t want to catch it, Jake thought. The prep sessions for his television appearance were run by Kevin O’Donnell and Earl Reynolds, the PR guy. Jake attended them, but every time he tried to add something to the briefing Reynolds would sing out, “Technobabble! Technobabble!”

  “But that’s what the plan’s about,” Jake objected. “New technology.”

  “No,” said O’Donnell firmly. “It’s about jobs and the economy.”

  The senator sat through it all, relaxed in his shirtsleeves, smiling genially.

  It wasn’t until the Sunday he was scheduled to appear on Face the Nation that Jake finally got to talk to Tomlinson one-on-one.

  Jake got up early that morning and drove through the quiet streets downtown to the CBS News building. He was shown to the green room, which was empty.

  “You’re the first one here,” said the young man who escorted him. Pointing to the coffee urn and tray of pastries, he added, “Make yourself comfortable.”

  As Jake was pouring himself a mug of coffee, Tomlinson breezed in, accompanied by Amy and Earl Reynolds.

  “Jake!” Tomlinson said heartily. “Early, as usual.”

  Amy looked perky and smiling, as usual. She wore a light-blue skirted suit with a single yellow rose pinned to its lapel. When she extended her hand to Jake, he took it and mumbled hello to her.

  Reynolds went straight to the coffee urn, asking over his shoulder, “Anybody for java?”

  “I’d like a cup, please,” said Amy. “With cream, no sweetener.”

  Standing next to Tomlinson and his wife as Reynolds worked the urn, Jake said, “I found out who Jacobi is.”

  The senator’s brows rose. “Oh? Who is he?”

  “Businessman. Coal business. Big political contributor to Santino for years.”

  “The money behind Santino?”

  Jake nodded. “He might be a pipeline for Mob money going to Santino.”

  Tomlinson pursed his lips. “That’s a big jump, Jake. Do you have anything to back it up?”

  “Just a gut feeling.”

  With a grin, the senator said, “Not every Italian is in the Mafia, Jake.”

  “Yeah, I know. The Mafia’s all a myth anyway, right?”

  Looking doubtful, Tomlinson said, “Maybe.”

  * * *

  The senator came across beautifully during his interview. Looking young, handsome, vigorous, he beamed his best smile at the smoothly coiffed blond woman interviewing him and painted an enchanting picture of an energy-independent America, where new technologies brought new wealth and power to the nation, while reversing the environmental damage caused by earlier energy systems.

  “You make it sound wonderful,” said the interviewer, with a plastic smile.

  “It can be wonderful,” Tomlinson enthused. “If we use our technical knowledge and our political wisdom, we can make America clean and green, and still generate more energy than we do today. We can become an exporter of new energy technologies and help to make the whole world cleaner and greener.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, the woman asked, “So where does your plan stand at present?”

  “I’ve just presented it to Senator Santino—”

  “He’s the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right, Adrienne. Senator Santino is the key man in this. He’s the one who will arrange the hearings and studies we need to get this plan onto the floor of the Senate and eventually to the president’s desk.”

  Her brows knitting slightly, the interviewer said, “It all sounds almost too good to be true.”

  Tomlinson gave her his brightest smile. “So did automobiles, at one time. And airplanes. And space travel. And the medical advances we’ve seen over the past few generations. New ideas, new capabilities always sound too good to be true, at first. But once we give them a chance to work, they make our lives better, richer, healthier.”

  She puffed out a little sigh. “I hope you’re right, Senator.”

  Looking straight into the camera, Tomlinson grinned boyishly and said, “Trust the future. We have a great future ahead of us.”

  The director ran a finger across his throat and said, “Okay, we’re out.”

  Tomlinson got to his feet as one of the camera crew, a teenaged woman with an awed expression on her face, came over to unclip the microphone from the senator’s lapel.

  The interviewer rose and stretched, catlike. With a cynical smile she asked Tomlinson, “Is any of that true?”

  “Every blessed word,” he replied. But Jake saw that, behind his back, the senator had crossed his fingers.

  Viral

  The plan went viral. Or rather, Tomlinson’s telegenic appearance went viral. Every TV station in town wanted to interview him. So did all the major news networks.

  Reynolds began asking Jake to take some of the requests. “Our boy’s more popular than Elvis,” he gushed excitedly.

  With some reluctance, Jake agreed to let himself be interviewed on local stations. And immediately called Tami Umetzu, happy for the excuse.

  Over dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in her Dupont Circle neighborhood, Tami told him, “On TV, what you say isn’t as important as the way you say it. You’ve got to smile and come across as sincere and likeable.”

  “Sincere and likeable,” Jake echoed.

  “That’s right,” she said, nodding enthusiastically. “Just be yourself.”

  She thinks I’m sincere and likable! Jake realized.

  “And smile just the way you’re smiling now,” she said, with a warm smile of her own.

  Reaching across the table to clasp her hand, Jake said, “I’ll try.” When she didn’t pull her hand away, he added, “It’d be a big help if you came to the studio with me. Then I’d have somebody to smile at.”

  “Okay,” Tami replied. “I’ll be your audience.”

  * * *

  For the first time in his life, Jake became something of a celebrity. Not a very big celebrity, just a local guy appearing on a couple of local TV news shows. He found he enjoyed it.

  I’m more than thirty-five years old, he said to himself, and I find out I’m a ham! He marveled at it. He told himself he was doing something important, spreading the word that American technological know-how could bring new prosperity to the nation while helping to clean up the environment.

  Sure, he thought. But the kick is sitting there in front of the cameras while the interviewer asks you questions and you tell them what you think,
tell them about your plan, your ideas, your hopes.

  After the third interview wrapped up, Jake and Tami went out onto the street and looked for a taxi. It was nearly midnight, cool and cloudy, threatening rain. Jake was glad he’d worn a sweater under his sports coat; Tami was in a red leather hip-length coat, with a heavy-looking tote bag slung over one shoulder.

  The traffic on the street was desultory; the TV studio was not located in the best part of town.

  “Let’s walk up the avenue,” Jake suggested. “Better chance to flag a taxi there.”

  “You were great, Jake,” she said, as they started walking.

  “Thanks to you,” Jake replied, as he kept his eyes peeled for potential muggers. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Tami.”

  “Sure you could have.”

  He spotted a taxi cruising in their direction and waved it down. Once they were settled inside, the driver asked, “Where to, kids?”

  Jake glanced at Tami, her face in the shadows, and heard himself give the driver his own address.

  Then he turned to Tami and kissed her. She kissed him back, quite tenderly.

  Once they reached Jake’s apartment, it turned out that Tami’s capacious tote bag was carrying a nightgown, a pair of slippers, a battery-operated toothbrush, and a package of condoms.

  Christmas Eve

  Halloween, Thanksgiving … now Christmas was approaching. The flurry of publicity about the energy plan died down, although Senator Tomlinson became a frequent guest on television news shows and—more important—in the Beltway insiders’ social whirl. He smiled his way through cocktail parties and elaborate dinners, always with his wife at his side. He participated in TV panel discussions about energy and the environment. He was making a name for himself as an expert on energy policy—among the local news media, if not in the Senate.

  The energy plan remained stalled in the Senate energy committee. As Steve Brogan had warned Jake at the outset, Senator Santino was quietly smothering the plan, waiting for the publicity to fade away before pigeonholing it forever.

  “There must be some way to break the plan loose,” Jake said, at the regular Monday morning meeting of the senator’s senior staff.

  Tomlinson sat at the head of the table, as usual, looking unhappy, troubled—an expression he never showed in public.

  Jake realized that, of the eight people around the conference room table, he was the only one from back in Montana. The rest were all Washingtonians, either by birth or by career choice.

  Kevin O’Donnell, sitting at the senator’s right, shook his head slowly. The expression on the staff chief’s narrow, bony face was almost sorrowful.

  “The plan is in Santino’s hands. He can sit on it, he can crap on it if he wants to. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “You mean he can kill it,” Jake said.

  “If he wants to.” Turning to the senator, O’Donnell advised, “And no matter what he does, your best course of action is to smile and take it. Show the Little Saint that you’re a good soldier and you can follow orders.”

  Tomlinson sat stonily silent.

  “Listen, Senator,” said the chief, “if you want to get along in this town, you’ve got to go along with the power flow. You can’t force Santino to push your plan. If you try to, he’ll freeze you out completely. You’ll be a one-term senator.”

  Jake wanted to object, he wanted to yell, but one look at Tomlinson’s face made him clamp his mouth shut. It was clear that the senator didn’t like what he was hearing, but he was swallowing it.

  Reynolds tried to lighten the mood. “You’re a big hit on the news shows. If you leave the Senate you could find a spot as a TV news analyst.”

  Jake wanted to puke.

  The next day was Christmas Eve. In the middle of the afternoon, while most of the staff was pulling on winter coats and heading for home or last-minute shopping, Jake got up from his desk and strolled through the suite, toward Tomlinson’s private office. He saw that O’Donnell’s office was empty. Good, he thought. Now, if the chief’s really gone and not in with the senator, maybe I can talk honestly with Frank.

  The secretary’s desk in front of Tomlinson’s door was vacant, as well. The office door was slightly ajar, but Jake could not hear any voices coming through.

  He’s alone, Jake thought. Good.

  He rapped on the door once, then stuck his head through. “Got a minute?”

  Tomlinson was sitting behind his desk, a tumbler of whiskey in one hand, his face somber.

  He smiled wearily. “Hi, Jake. Come on in. I was just going to phone Amy, tell her I’d be home in a few minutes. We’re going to a big dinner that the senior senator from Virginia is throwing.”

  Jake sat tensely on one of the trio of comfortable leather chairs in front of the desk.

  “We’ve got to do something about the energy plan,” he said earnestly. “We can’t let Santino kill it.”

  Tomlinson shrugged carelessly. “Jake, the energy plan isn’t the only thing I’m trying to do here.”

  “I know. But it’s the most important thing.”

  “Santino doesn’t think so.”

  “And you have to follow his lead, like a good junior senator.”

  “Looks that way.”

  Jake puffed out a breath. “It just isn’t right.”

  “Maybe next year.”

  “No, not next year. Or the year after that. Santino’s in the fossil fuel lobby’s pocket. He’ll never let the plan see the light of day.”

  Tomlinson took a gulp of his whiskey, then put the glass down on his desk. “Jake, do you know the Chinese advice to a woman who’s about to be raped?”

  Jake felt his face twist into a frown. “Relax and enjoy it,” he answered. “Don’t let any women hear you tell that one.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m getting screwed by Santino and there’s nothing I can do about it. So I might as well relax and enjoy it.”

  “I thought leaking the plan would help,” Jake muttered.

  “It didn’t. It just made Santino sore at me. He won’t even let me onto the coal subcommittee. I’m on his shit list.”

  Jake realized he was gnawing on a fingernail. Snatching his hand away, he repeated, “There ought to be something we can do about it.”

  “Like what?” Tomlinson challenged.

  “There’s got to be some chink in Santino’s armor, some flaw…”

  Tomlinson smiled sardonically. “Jake, the Little Saint’s been in this town for more than a quarter century. If there was a flaw in his background, don’t you think somebody would have found it by now?”

  “Maybe somebody has,” Jake said.

  “Huh?”

  Jake asked, “Why is Santino in the fossil fuel lobby’s pocket?”

  “Because that’s where the power is,” Tomlinson replied.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they know something about him that nobody else knows. Something from far back in his past, maybe.”

  The senator got up from his desk and reached for his suit jacket, draped on the back of his chair. “Jake, you’re grasping at straws.”

  “Maybe,” Jake said. “But if anybody knows the dirt under Santino’s fingernails, it’d be Jacobi.”

  Tomlinson’s eyes widened. “Jacobi? You stay away from him. He could be big trouble.”

  “Yeah. Guess so,” Jake said.

  “I’ve got to go,” said the senator.

  Nodding, Jake said, “Have a good time.”

  Then he remembered he had a party to go to as well. With Tami. Just the two of them.

  The Lion’s Den

  Jake spent Christmas with Tami, who seemed thrilled with the opal pinkie ring he had bought her, and even more delighted that Jake was surprised by her gift to him: a DVD package of the entire set of PBS’s Nova series on cosmology.

  She had insisted on making Christmas dinner for him, and Jake had dutifully gone out and bought a small turkey and a pumpkin pie. Tami took care of everything else, and their quiet dinner to
gether was the happiest Christmas Jake had enjoyed since his wife had died.

  * * *

  That night, though, as they lay together in bed, Jake’s mind turned once again to Jacobi.

  “He’s the key to it all,” Jake said. He knew he was trying to convince himself, and he knew it was working.

  Lying beside him in Jake’s folded-out futon, Tami asked drowsily, “He? Who?”

  Jake turned to her. In the darkened room he could barely make out the profile of her face against the pale glow of the nightlight by the bedroom doorway.

  “Jacobi,” Jake said.

  Tami asked, “Bert Jacobi?”

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve heard of him. Back when I was working for Reuter’s.”

  “He’s an old friend of Senator Santino’s,” Jake said. “Childhood pals. If anybody knows some dirt about Santino, Jacobi’s the one.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes. But how do I get him to tell me anything useful?”

  Tami was wide-awake now. With a giggle, she said, “I could try my womanly wiles on him.”

  Jake reached across and pulled her to him. “Oh no you don’t. Your womanly wiles belong to me.”

  “Belong?”

  “Well … sort of.”

  She did not reply.

  “Tami, this is serious. I’ve got to figure out how I can get Jacobi to talk to me.”

  “Why don’t you tell him that you need some leverage with Santino, so would he please tell you something about the senator’s sordid past.”

  Jake frowned. “Very funny.”

  “Go to sleep,” she said, starting to turn over.

  But Jake grabbed her bare hip, beneath the covers. “Not yet,” he said.

  Even in the shadows of the night he saw her smile. “It’s womanly wiles time, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nearly an hour later, Tami had slipped into sleep, but Jake lay on his back, staring at the darkened ceiling. And he knew what he was going to do. It was all there, in his mind.

  Funny how sexual intercourse clears away all the barriers in your brain, he thought. Lovemaking is good for your intelligence.