Snow Job

by William Deverell

  Charley Thiessen, attorney general, minister of justice, minister of public security — he’d come a long way from family law, foreclosures, and fender benders in Flesherton, Ontario. Who would have thought? His mom, maybe, who’d never stopped believing.

  He was a big, broad-backed, hearty guy, and let’s face it, handsome — his mother said he looked just like John Wayne, he had the same confident way of moseying, the same easy manners. A man of the people, that’s why Charley had risen above the others, the corporate lawyers in their Bay Street suites, the slick Q.C.s wearing silk and driving Porsches. Snobs who lacked the common touch, who’d never taken the temperature of the times in a local bar, barbershop, or bingo hall.

  That’s why he’d bonded with Huck — they were made of the same stuff, they’d risen the hard and honest way, up from Main Street, slapping backs, getting out to all the weddings, christenings, funerals even if sick or hungover. He felt a pang remembering Huck, the many nights they’d spent drinking and laughing and scheming. He’d spent half of Tuesday with Huck’s family, and wept with them.

  As he strolled into the Parliamentary Dining Room, it was, “Morning, Charley, you’re looking exceedingly well.” This from the manager. He was always Charley, never Mr. Thiessen, he’d insisted on it. More greetings from M.P.s and senators, Charley, Charley, he gives you no blarney. One of his campaign slogans.

  Here, hunching over a tablecloth with rolls and coffee, was E.K. Boyes. Thiessen would normally steer away from him — the PMO head honcho wasn’t the liveliest of company — but Guy DuWallup was with him, Canada’s new senator, who’d taken a hero’s bullet for the boss.

  “Morning, Charley,” they chimed.

  “You boys look clapped out — you’d think there was a crisis going on.” He chuckled to let them know he was joking, and sat, signalled the waiter for a coffee.

  “We are awaiting our call to duty,” E.K. said.

  Waiting for the high priestess to get out of bed, Thiessen assumed — Clara had been up late. She would go through the motions of asking their advice before announcing the big shuffle. DuWallup was in her inner circle, a key player even in disgrace. E.K.’s job would be to tell her what skeletons were hiding in what closets.

  “I understand you’ve already had a little talk with the prime minister.” E.K. spoke low because of the bright acoustics in the room.

  “Woke me out of bed at a quarter to midnight. Don’t know where she gets the staying power, she’s an Amazon.”

  “Yes,” E.K. said, “the interim P.M. is a woman of impressive fortitude.”

  Thiessen heard a slight emphasis on the word interim. The gnome had a way of coding his messages.

  As Thiessen’s coffee arrived, E.K. rose. “Must be off to prepare some notes of fulsome thanks and deep regret.”

  “That’s got to be one of the toughest jobs.” Letters to the poor bastards being sent to the back of the bus. Thiessen wanted to ask if Gerry Lafayette would be among them, but decided that might not be cool.

  When DuWallup began to rise, E.K. motioned him to stay. “Why don’t you gentlemen have a little chat?”

  Thiessen watched the little man leave, puzzled. “Chat? What about?”

  DuWallup looked him over like a tailor sizing him up for a new suit. “Actually, about you.”

  Thiessen snared a roll, fiddled with it, suddenly lacking appetite. “Yeah, really?” What had he done now?

  “You know what I admire about you, Charley? You got where you are by playing fair. Never stuck a knife between anyone’s shoulder blades.”

  “Yeah, make friends not enemies, I find that works pretty good in this business.”

  “Lord knows that’s held you in good stead. Forty-nine years old, raised in the heartland, lovely young wife, three great kids, party member since you were in jumpers, two pluralities in two elections. And the camera loves you. You’ve got the manner, you’ve got the look. Housewives swoon.”

  “Don’t forget the winning tackle in the Vanier Cup.”

  DuWallup rose, urged Thiessen into one of the alcoves, where they huddled. “A lot of people think you should put your name up.”

  Thiessen got a little ego surge when he realized that’s what DuWallup and E.K. had been bouncing around. Gracey faced a confirmation vote as party leader, at a convention to be called soon. Thiessen had expected her to slide through, Lafayette being pretty well out of the picture. This wasn’t something he’d really thought about, except in rambling daydreams. Or when his mom used to embarrass him with her “My Charley’s going to be prime minister one day.”

  He was astonished that Gracey’s own chief of staff would plot against her. Maybe it was personal, maybe political — E.K. was hardcore Tory blue, almost to extremes, scared of a leftward drift under Gracey. Also a kind of closet misogynist.

  “Yes, your name keeps coming up. Jack Bodnarchuk, just yesterday, he sees you as Huck’s heir apparent. He could bring in Alberta, eighty per cent of their delegates. Most of our western power base, in fact — they’re very uneasy about an ex-economics professor from Toronto running things. That shift away from the oil economy we’ve been playing up, she actually believes in it. And let’s face it, under her watch we’ve seen all the major indexes continue to fall, we’re running a massive deficit. Frankly nobody thinks she’s going to last, even if we win next week’s vote.”

  With Huck and DuWallup gone from the House, the non-confidence motion would hang on four votes, maybe only three if a suspected maverick hiding in the wilds of Newfoundland failed to show. He’d shot a few toes off while moose hunting, maybe on purpose. Meanwhile, the Opposition would be bringing in the troops on wheelchairs and stretchers.

  “And of course you’d have most of Huck’s gang. New Brunswick, half of Nova Scotia. Your own stomping grounds, rural Ontario, even if Clara has TO and the 905 sewn up.”

  Thiessen was intrigued but uncomfortable. Just last night, he’d told Gracey she could always count on him. But as DuWallup continued to muse about where Clara might take the country (snarled relations with the U.S., letting the automakers go under, abortion clinics in every mall), he began to ask himself if maybe his first allegiance was to the party, to conservatism. In that sense, he could hardly be accused of disloyalty.

  Thiessen paused under Brian Mulroney’s portrait as he adjusted his tie, shrugged into his coat. There was a similarity: the noble chin, the barrel chest, the hearty booming voice. A standout leader, an inspiration, a model. Yeah, he could be the guy to get the country back on its economic feet.

  He pictured himself as an international figure, photo ops with presidents and prime ministers, popes and potentates. Kind of beats being named Grey County Citizen of the Year 1996. Yeah, that smarmy Divisional judge who told him he couldn’t argue his way out of a paper bag would be shitting purple. To hear DuWallup, it was a walk. Did he have the balls for it? The smarts? The tools? That he even asked these questions said he lacked confidence. He’d call his mother that night.

  He slipped out a side door, past the smokers, determined to avoid the rabble on the steps, that ever-growing mass of pimpled peaceniks and welfare-addicted anarchists with their placards and clown suits and rubber masks. But he couldn’t resist a look back while waiting for the light at Wellington. They had a Laurel and Hardy act going, complete with pratfalls. Women dressed as prostitutes posing seductively for the reporters waiting for that insufferable indépendiste Chambleau to set up his own ridiculous show in the Press Building.

  Thiessen wasn’t going to play chicken and lose face, not Charley boy, the new white hope of the party of Sir John A. and Diefenbaker and Mulroney. Chambleau had publicly dared him to turn up, and he would damn well do that, take the shine off the performance, wisecrack with the press, be ready with some quips if the show fizzled. His sense of humour, that was an asset DuWallup failed to mention. He had his cabinet colleagues in tears sometimes.

  He pursued a backpedalling cameraman into the National Press Theatre, plowing through a scr
um — there were scores of reporters. He didn’t miss a beat. “Thought I’d just wander through the bazaar and see what they’re selling.”

  Near a table at the back, loaded with croissants and jugs of juice, Julien Chambleau was also being scrummed, mostly by the French press. At the podium table were two old grizzled guys, Zandoo the magician and his mouthpiece A.R. Beauchamp, the Paki looking tense, the lawyer leaning back, thumbs behind suspenders, like a cattle boss from some old Western flick.

  Party records showed that Beauchamp had been a member as a young man, back in the Progressive Conservative days — he’d followed Diefenbaker in, the great Prairie orator and lawyer, but let his membership lapse. Now he was consorting with eco-terrorists, Flett and Buckett. They were on his payroll.

  The guy’s spouse wasn’t here, out somewhere hugging trees. But maybe he shouldn’t be so dismissive of her views, her push for stiff environmental laws. He was confused by global warming, all those theories about the coming big melt, the calamities to follow. His kids, especially his older daughter, were on him constantly about it.

  Julien Chambleau paused from working the press to approach him. “So you accepted the challenge, Minister.”

  “Hey, I’m just plain old Charley.”

  “In any event, we’re delighted to have you among us.”

  “Couldn’t resist, heard you were serving baloney sandwiches.” That drew a blank with Chambleau — maybe it was lost in translation or he was just humourless. Thiessen declined the offer of a seat close up, preferring to sit in the raised area at the back with a friendly pundit from the Fraser Institute.

  After correcting a few sound problems, Chambleau said a few words about how the people of Quebec were shoulder-to-shoulder with all of Canada in these difficult times — a typical separatist spiel: we are with you but not of you. He introduced Zandoo, a constituent, proud Quebecer, naturalized citizen, community activist, and so on, then turned the mike over to Beauchamp, counsel for the Erzhan family and Zandoo. Pro bono, but Thiessen knew he was doing it for the publicity.

  More problems with the mike, but Beauchamp started off fine without it, he had a voice you could hear a block away in heavy traffic. “Okay, while that contraption is being looked at, give me your ears, folks.”

  “You come to bury the government, not to praise it,” someone said to laughter.

  “‘I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is.’” More laughs.

  Thiessen was reminded of Finnerty, his rapport with the media. Funeral this weekend, he’d be sharing top billing with Gracey and the Opposition leader. He’d probably cry, it wouldn’t be an act — they’d been like brothers. The heir apparent, that was starting to sound right. Huck had somehow become more popular in death than life, so that could be a boost. If Thiessen decided to go for it.

  They were laughing again at something Beauchamp said. In French, no less. French, or the lack of it, that was one of Thiessen’s drawbacks. Never needed it in Grey County. A history of lacklustre report cards was another problem — he’d had to repeat third-year law.

  Now Beauchamp turned serious. “To those among you who may wonder why we bring this matter not before the private scrutiny of officialdom but before the press, I paraphrase Edmund Burke: a power far more important than that of kings and parliaments resides in the fourth estate. And that power used wisely and boldly is democracy’s lifeblood.”

  A touch of honey for the media flies. This guy was a natural. Why wasn’t he in politics?

  “Mr. Zandoo has a statement to read. I’m confident you’ll listen to and question him respectfully.”

  The microphone, working now, was passed to Zandoo, who must have been nervous, but hid it with a gruff manner as Beauchamp drew from him some personal history: born where, immigrated when, made a living how. The podium backdrop, an array of loosely hanging maple leaf flags, had the unfortunate effect of giving the guy a kind of patriotic credibility.

  Thiessen tried to hang in there, but too much was on his mind. He’d need a campaign committee, endorsements from respected names. He’d need money. Maybe a few French lessons, but, hey, Dief the Chief hardly spoke it, and he amassed the biggest majority in Canadian history. Hardest of all, he’d need to find some way to square it all with Clara Gracey. He’d tell her he couldn’t fight the pressure, they were coming at him from all sides. Also, a fair and tough debate about goals and principles would be healthy for the party.

  The national executive was planning a February convention. Maybe by then Gracey would have put this Bhashyistan thing behind them, with honour. If not, let’s face it, the party, the entire country, would be looking for new leadership. Where would Lafayette’s votes go? Maybe Thiessen should soap him up a little. Even if he ended up today as minister of interprovincial livestock standards, he could still be a broker.

  Back to Zandoo, carrying on in his gravelly voice about this so-called abduction, a black car pulling up for Erzhan, two white guys getting out, urging him to get in, then pulling him in, pushing his head down like the cops do on the TV shows, but without resistance, his legs buckling. Zandoo just happens to be there to see this? How convenient. Then he doesn’t tell the police because he was leery of them over some racist incident? Come on.

  It bugged Thiessen a little, though, that Zandoo had told this story to Erzhan’s wife immediately afterwards. She’d confirmed that, it was on record with the cops. Why hadn’t they given him the third degree when they had the chance, Crumwell too? Maybe that’s why the sullen bugger was having a little problem with the bowels.

  He was fighting a dry throat, so he went to the refreshment table for a glass of tomato juice, smiling and waving at the lenses that followed him there and back.

  When Zandoo started fielding questions, Thiessen’s reaction was: where are the attack dogs? Beauchamp must have played a little hockey in his time, or maybe refereed, the way he calmly skated around and kept reporters from getting their bodychecks.

  But here, finally, was the Fraser Institute maestro — Thiessen had passed him a note — asking Zandoo about his jailed cousin, the al-Qaeda terrorist.

  Zandoo looked confused. His questioner prompted him with a name, Mohammed Aziz. “Means nothing,” Zandoo said. “Why would I know a terrorist? If he’s some kind of religious fanatic, I have no dealings with such people, they disgust me.”

  The pundit glanced at Thiessen, frowned over his note. “Your, uh, mother’s uncle’s grandson. Twenty years old, fought for the Taliban. He’s in an American prison in Kabul. Does that ring a bell, sir?”

  “No bells are ringing. I have lived in Canada twenty-three years, never returned. How would I meet some crazy young man not born when I came to this country?”

  This line of questioning was going over like a lead balloon, Beauchamp sitting there with a big fat grin, offering his two bits worth. “If the justice minister has other equally compelling information he hopes might tar my client, maybe he can offer it directly rather than through an intermediary.”

  From somewhere, poorly stifled laughter. As Thiessen stood he slopped tomato juice on his shirt and tie.

  “Someone get the minister a straw,” Beauchamp said. Uproarious laughter.

  Thiessen’s face went as red as his shirt, and he stammered, his knack for the sharp comeback deserting him. It seemed like half a day as he stood there with his mouth open. Finally, he could only grit his teeth, sit back down, and accept his licks. He’d pulled a boner coming here. He’ll nail that smug bugger. Someday, somehow.

  As Clara Gracey led Dexter McPhee to the door of the P.M.’s office, she opted for a handshake — a hug seemed inappropriate. “We’re polling at almost sixty per cent of retired troops, so don’t let anyone tell you Veterans Affairs isn’t an absolutely key portfolio. No one can work the Legion Halls like you, Dexter; I’ve seen you in action too many times to doubt that. I’m so proud to have you aboard.”

  McPhee walked out stiffly, mumbling, “Proud to be serving, Clara. G
ood luck.” The insincerity was palpable.

  Clara mopped her brow, lit a cigarette, leaned on her desk for support. That was a tough one, but McPhee had been too closely tied to Eager Beaver. “Give me strength,” she prayed, hoping someone up there was listening.

  Percival Galbraith-Smythe slipped in, frowning, turning on the desk fan to blow away the smoke. She’d brought him over from Finance as executive assistant, much to the discomfort of E.K. Boyes — the chief of staff suffered more than a mild homophobic disorder.

  “M. Lafayette is outside on the phone to our UN ambassador, pretending it’s business as usual. Please put that out, it will make him think you’re rattled.”

  One last draw, then she butted out, slid the ashtray into a drawer. “Did you reach Sonja?”

  “She’s delighted.”

  Sonja Dubjek, a former diplomat, the new face of Foreign Affairs. The gender gap tightens. “How did Chambleau’s press conference go?”

  “Thiessen waltzed in there and made a complete bloody fool of himself. I know he’s cute, darling, but otherwise what do you see in him?”

  “I like him, he lacks ambition. What did he do?”

  “Later. The prince of darkness awaits.”

  Clara popped a breath mint. “Send him in.”

  Percival gave way to Gerry Lafayette, hiding behind a smile as he pocketed his phone. “Good news, Clara, the UN is sending a high-ranking emissary to Igorgrad. Assistant secretary-general, no less. Plans to warn them that if they don’t see reason they’ll be internationally condemned as a pariah state. Sanctions, embargos, the whole package.”

  An initiative that should have been sought in the first place. But Clara didn’t say that. “Excellent. No movement from Security Council?”