Big Guns

by Steve Israel

“Good luck,” Lois scoffed. “And even if they found five hundred people, who’d run against me?”

  The chief and Sam exchanged worried glances. Sam groaned, “Who do you think? Kellogg!”

  Lois felt that unpleasant taste on the back of her tongue, then waved dismissively. “Which is exactly why they won’t get the signatures.”

  *

  The weekend began unhappily for Amber Steele.

  “But Jaaaack, it’s Saturday. I have tennis!”

  Jack studied her from just outside the door of her cavernous bedroom. She was reclining on a purple velvet divan in the far corner, her long calves curving behind her, knees pointed forward. She wore a short pink tennis dress that matched the angry flush of her cheeks. The way the dress crept above her knees, revealing fine stretches of firm bronzed thigh, aroused Jack. But he knew that these days sex with Amber—or anyone, for that matter—was worthy of an Oscar, something in the category of special effects.

  “I know, baby,” Jack cooed. “But the whole thing’ll be finished in an hour. Besides, how many personal appearances do I make for you? All those puppies’ rights dinners and horse liberation brunches.”

  Amber crinkled her nose as she considered Jack’s point.

  He continued: “C’mon, baby, you can play later. I’ll buy you a new tennis outfit.” Then he thought, Something you can take off for Antonio, the pro you’re shtupping.

  Jack went downstairs to check on preparations for the first and—he was sure—last Jack Steele Open House. Outside, white tents billowed in the ocean breeze. Linen-draped buffet tables were stocked and top shelf liquor was unpacked. In the grand foyer, floral arrangements were primped and a jazz quartet prepared to play renditions of Jack Steele film scores.

  Jack positioned himself in front of the grand staircase, checked his watch, and scowled at the double front doors. Soon, he knew, the hordes would parade through, like tourists at Disney. He’d sign autographs and pose for those loathsome selfies. He’d watch them ogle costars from his movies. (The average age of these quasicelebrities was eighty. The average body part was eight. Boobs were lifted, tummies tucked, lips tightened, teeth implanted, hips replaced.) His guests would peek into the twelve bedrooms of Villa di Acciaio, gawk at the gold-plated fixtures in Jack’s bathrooms, study faded movie awards in glass display cases. They’d marvel at framed photos of Jack chumming with Schwarzenegger, Willis, Bronson. They’d guzzle mimosas and Bloody Marys, and gorge themselves on the lavish buffets. Three hundred Asabogue residents were invited, with one price of admission: a distracted glance at a green slip of paper, which guests would sign with ambivalent shrugs as their eyes tracked the course of caviar platters.

  Jack heard the rumble of vehicles approaching on the driveway and sighed. The sacrifices one must make for democracy, he thought.

  The next morning, Otis called Jack and asked, “How many signatures didya get?”

  “Over two hundred. But the village attorney thinks we’ll need a thousand. The Suffolk County Board of Elections has to certify each signature. We need a cushion.”

  “Good Lord! Five hundred is hard enough! How you gonna get a thousand?”

  “Carpe diem.”

  *

  Later that day, the Friends of the Land honored Jack Steele for his “lifetime achievement in protecting open space.” “Lifetime” was a stretch. Even “a few weeks” would have been overly generous. Actually, Jack’s entire commitment to land preservation was the time it took to call his golfing buddy, John Palmer, who chaired the board of the Friends of the Land to offer to “raise a few bucks” for the charity. Now, several hundred people, seasonably attired with sweaters slung across shoulders and white slacks, crammed into a renovated gray barn to fete Jack.

  Speeches were made and plaques presented. Finally, Jack, who passed the torturous time with ample amounts of North Fork wines, was introduced. He grabbed the mic and slurred, “I don’t deserve this honor.” (That may have been the most honest portion of his speech.) “But I do know this. This land is your land. This land is my land. From California to the New York island. From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. This land was made for you and me. God bless our troops.”

  He sat down to the polite applause and mild confusion of the audience. Before filing out, they were asked to sign petitions.

  *

  “Now how many?” Otis asked the following morning.

  “Six hundred. And counting.”

  *

  Jack’s schedule was packed.

  The Friends of the Dunes gathered to receive the largest donation for beach restoration in its history. They toasted Jack with biodegradable cups filled with organic red wine. Then they signed green petitions. Later that night, sixty people gathered in the newly dedicated Jack Steele Theater at the Asabogue Library. They took pictures of Jack presenting an enlarged white cardboard check. Then signed green petitions. Within a few short weeks, the beneficence of the Jack Steele Charitable Foundation had spread, along with green petitions, throughout Asabogue. Thirty-five signatures were scrawled at the dedication of a new truck for the Asabogue Volunteer Fire Department; seventy signatures at the Friends of the Osprey Annual Brunch on the Bluff; eighteen signatures at the Friends of the Riverhead Aquarium Gala Fashion Show honoring Amber Steele; and thirty-seven at the ribbon cutting of the Friends of the Colonoscopy Unit at Southampton Hospital.

  So many friends, so few actual friendships.

  But so many signatures.

  Of course, many squirmed when the petition was slipped in front of them. In such cases, a clean-scrubbed Canvass Sneakers staffer politely explained that “this petition doesn’t obligate you to anything. It simply gives the people of Asabogue the right to decide for themselves whether to elect a new mayor. If you support Lois Liebowitz, you’ll be able to vote for her. Sign right here for the opportunity to support the mayor.”

  *

  On a Friday morning in late June, a white minivan pulled up to the Suffolk County Board of Elections, a dull brick building in a place called Yaphank. Three armed security guards opened the doors of the truck, and a team from Canvass Sneakers emerged. They briskly carried bundles of green petitions into the building They plunked them down on a counter and watched as a sleepy clerk stamped them in and scribbled a receipt. They paid, by certified check, a two-hundred-dollar filing fee and took a receipt for that as well.

  Later, the Republican and Democratic Commissioners of the Board of Elections examined each signature against the voter rolls of Suffolk County. They searched for discrepancies—voters who were not registered, voters who were no longer alive, voters who didn’t reside at the address indicated, voters whose signature on the petition deviated materially from their signature on file with the board.

  Of 1,104 signatures submitted, nearly three hundred were tossed out due to irregularities, leaving more than enough valid signatures.

  A recall election was ordered.

  By green petitions signed, sealed, and delivered.

  15

  Otis Cogsworth had summoned Sunny and America’s highest-priced political consultants to design a legislative strategy to pass AFFFA. Although they sat around a long conference table in the New York City headquarters of Cogsworth International Arms, Sunny wasn’t sure what century they were in. Dark paneled walls displayed brooding portraits of Cogs-worth’s early executives in the popular style of their time: mutton chops. Funereal red drapes were closed against windows, casting the room in a morbid gloom and muffling the squawking horns of traffic on Park Avenue ten floors below. White-tie attendants stood stiffly nearby, ready to pour coffee into gold-rimmed china emblazoned with the Cogsworth family coat of arms: two 1920s Cogsy submachine guns crossed against a bull’s-eye. The bull’s-eye was encircled with the words “Tueri et Defendere.” Protect and Defend. The room reeked from decades of cigar smoke baked into overstuffed red leather chairs. Sunny expected that at any minute Cornelius Vanderbilt would crash through the doors to acquire a railroad.

/>   She also noticed that she was the only woman at the table of political consultants, which seemed to make her the object of a salivating focus group. She was tempted to ask, “Are you excited to see me or is that a poll in your pocket?”

  She fidgeted with the top button of her shirt, making sure it was fastened, and tugged the lapels of her suit jacket over her chest.

  Otis rapped his thick knuckles on the table and barked, “Let’s get started. Sunny McCarthy is my gal on this.”

  Gal. She cringed.

  “Passing this law should be a piece of cake,” Otis continued. “The Speaker supports it and it has two hundred cosponsors. So when can we expect the president to sign it?”

  Heads remained frozen while eyeballs pitched into violent rolls. Sunny suppressed a laugh, then said, “Otis, it’s Congress. Even when they agree on something, they’ll find a way not to do it. Every bill is a hostage drama.”

  He scowled. “It’s a wonder this country’s made it this far.” Then slurped his coffee before an attendant rushed to refill his cup.

  “Our first big challenge is Congressman Wilbur Overbay. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.”

  Everyone grumbled in agreement. Overbay was the last of the old guard in the House, occupying his seat for more than fifty years. He was legendary for both ego and libido raging inside a rapidly failing body. When a Roll Call reporter asked him under what circumstances he would leave the House, he indicated it would be in a pine box with a brief layover in the Capitol Rotunda for a state funeral.

  “With Overbay, it’s all about congressional seniority,” Sunny explained.

  “More like senility!” someone blurted, to an explosion of frat house giggles.

  Sunny was annoyed. “Don’t underestimate him. He comes across feeble but he’s ferocious. And he won’t tolerate some lowly freshman from Arkansas trying to move a bill through his committee. Ransom’s going to be high on this. He’ll demand that his name go on the bill. Plus on whatever bridge, dam, or highway Congress will have to fund in the deal he cuts to pass AFFFA.”

  “Where’s he from?” Otis asked.

  “Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Sunny replied. Then she asked, “What’s the cost of television advertising in his district?”

  A media consultant sporting a black T-shirt, black jeans, black blazer, black sunglasses, and black scruff responded, “Dirt cheap. Three media markets. Traverse City, Marquette, and Alpena. For a few hundred thousand bucks we can saturate Overbay’s district with pro-AFFFA commercials. I mean, it’s the Upper Peninsula. They love their guns, right?”

  “Love, love, love,” Sunny clucked. Then added, “And while we’re pressuring Overbay through the airwaves, we’ve got some pressure on the ground. Her name is Sarah Plunkett.”

  Everyone seemed to lean forward for the lurid details. Sunny imagined visions of bedroom videos, salacious texts, and carnal tweets flashing in that dark, damp part of their brains where conspiracy theories flourished. “She happens to be a popular state senator in Overbay’s district. She’d like a seat in Congress but can’t have one because Wilbur Overbay refuses to retire. Or die. So, if he doesn’t move our bill fast enough, she’ll threaten a primary.” “Check and mate!” someone said.

  Sunny continued, “Congressman Dirkey and I are meeting with Overbay in DC tomorrow.”

  “If he makes it that long,” someone groaned.

  Otis nodded his head and proclaimed, “Good plan!”

  Sunny thought, It’s Congress. The national junkyard of good plans that met bad endings.

  *

  The next morning, Roy Dirkey grabbed Sunny’s elbow and pulled her into an elevator in the Rayburn House Office Building that was reserved for Members Only. She knew it was Members Only because of the incessant flashing of scarlet red letters that said “MEMBERS ONLY” and the stern recorded voice of a woman repeatedly warning potential elevator hitchhikers that “This elevator is reserved for Members only!”

  “Should I be in here?” Sunny asked.

  Roy grinned. “You’re with me.”

  She felt his fingers linger on her elbow, then pull slowly away as the elevator whisked upward.

  “Remember,” she said. “Overbay’s old school. Freshmen are seen and not heard.”

  “I’m not much of a seen-and-not-heard type of guy. I came to Washington to shake things up.”

  “You want to pass this bill, Roy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then play nice.”

  “What if Overbay won’t support us?”

  “Leave that to me. Meanwhile, grovel!”

  The elevator doors slid open with another reminder that only Members could take a privileged ride.

  Welcome to Wild Kingdom, Sunny thought as they entered Overbay’s lobby. Animal trophies peered from high walls: bears, moose, and bucks. Sunny gasped when she realized she was standing heel deep in the filleted fur of a dead grizzly, jaws open, eyes frozen.

  “He keeps the trophies of his political opponents in the back,” she whispered to Roy.

  An intern who looked like she was on loan from the Norwegian woman’s basketball team pointed to a leather couch draped with a leopard skin.

  They waited. And waited. Roy checked his watch several times.

  Sunny whispered again: “It’s an old-school ritual. He’s making you wait. Establishing his dominance. It’s better than spraying urine.”

  Finally, a door opened. Overbay’s chief of staff, Buck Messina, appeared. He was in his fifties, thin, with wiry gray hair, slightly crooked glasses, and the expression of someone who didn’t particularly care for company. A congressional staff badge swung from a metal chain around his neck. “Mr. Overbay is ready for you.”

  The inner sanctum was like an intensive care unit. Overbay was propped in a wheelchair. Medical devices beeped, whirred, and blinked. A web of plastic tubes coiled around his frail body. His head was slumped into a hollow chest cavity and parchment eyelids fluttered as he wheezed shallowly. Skeletal hands trembled in a lap filled with the remains of his lunch. His face sported uneven patches of whiskers, as if he had shaved that morning with a weed whacker.

  Sunny scanned the walls. She believed that in order to connect with any official, she didn’t have to study the centrifugal spin of their official biography. Just read their walls, which Sunny knew were museum exhibits to the life and times of the people they surrounded. Walls revealed personalities and priorities, values and victories. Sunny had a knack for finding that one thing on a wall that sparked conversation, created solidarity, cultivated a relationship. Here, she was tempted to say, Did you know they now have color photography? Every framed picture was faded black-and-white. Overbay had run out of wall space somewhere in the middle of the Reagan administration.

  The chief of staff roused his boss from his slumber. Or, Sunny thought, coma.

  Overbay lifted his head and opened his eyes. They were sepia yellow and seemed to be draining fluid, like a rusty faucet.

  Dirkey put out his hand, which Overbay ignored.

  Sunny noticed that something else had captured his attention. His eyes were frozen on her ankles, then followed the curve of her legs to her hips. The beeping of his medical devices accelerated. His snakelike lips curled to a lewd smile.

  It’s a medical miracle, she thought.

  Dirkey began: “Mr. Chairman, thank you for—”

  Overbay waved him away with a trembling hand. “What do you do?” he asked Sunny in a tinny voice.

  “I represent Cogsworth International Arms, Mr. Chairman. We—”

  “Phillip Cogsworth?”

  Sunny figured that somewhere in Otis’s family tree there was a Phillip. Maybe he was on the Wall of Mutton Chops in New York.

  Overbay continued, “Phillip Cogsworth and I used to hunt together. For many, many years.”

  Success, thought Sunny. She’d found a connection. “Was he a good shot?”

  “The jackass almost shot me in the ass. Never liked the man.”


  “I don’t believe he’s with the company anymore,” Sunny replied quickly.

  “Well, I sure as hell hope not. I went to his funeral. Sat next to Hubert Humphrey. The man talked through the whole service. Never liked him either.”

  Well, isn’t this going well!

  Dirkey leaned forward and harrumphed, “Humphrey! You know those liberals!”

  Overbay’s eyes thinned. The beeping accelerated and the oxygen tank hissed. “What do you mean by that, son?”

  Seen and not heard, Roy!

  “Well, you know. They . . . talk. But—”

  “Let me tell you something. In those days, talking was a virtue. We negotiated! Compromised!” His skeletal hands fluttered on his lap, scattering sandwich crumbs. “We yelled at each other by day, drank with each other by night, cut the deal by dawn! Your generation? You don’t want a deal. You just want to destroy. Tear down this institution. I’d take Humphrey over you any day of the week! And Nixon and LBJ, too. Ohhhhh, now Lyndon. He was a dealmaker. And Reagan . . .”

  Well, this is a nice tour down ancient memory lane.

  Overbay’s lips were moving, but his words were reduced to murmurs. He seemed to be drifting off. Sunny wondered whether he was dreaming about the time he negotiated the annexation of Texas with President Polk.

  He snored.

  Buck Messina, whose principal function seemed to be keeping his boss awake—or alive—said, “Thank you for visiting. See you next time.”

  “We’d like to discuss the chairman’s support of the American Freedom from Fear Act,” Sunny pressed.

  “Not going to happen.”

  “But—”

  “You’re wasting your time. No one in this Congress has a better record on gun rights than Mr. Overbay. He’s chairman of the Judiciary Committee for a reason. The NRA demanded that the Speaker appoint him. We have to rent a warehouse for all the awards they’ve given him. But this bill—requiring every American to possess a firearm—goes way too far. It’s dangerous. In fact, it’s going to backfire. No pun intended.” He didn’t laugh or smile. He just stared matter-of-factly through his thick eyeglasses at Sunny.