The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller)

by Andrew Delaplaine

  “Thank you! Thank you!” he said, turning to the crowd.

  Mowbray said, “Thank you” about twenty times before the crowd finally settled down.

  “With heartfelt thanks to all my supporters, and with great respect for those who opposed me, I humbly accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.”

  Again the almost obligatory uproar as the delegates rose to their feet in unison, yelling and applauding wildly.

  “This is a moment that is very special to me, as I’m sure you all can imagine. There’s not a city councilman in the smallest town in America who has won an election who doesn’t think he has the guts and the brains and the sheer raw talent to be standing here where I’m standing now—as the nominee of a party that’s going to send the next President of the United States to the White House in November!”

  Again the crowd lit up and rose as one.

  Mowbray went on:

  “This moment is even more special because the loser in this nominating convention is not a loser at all, but a big winner, as all Americans are tonight.”

  Up in the broadcast booth, Brian turned to Gabrielle.

  “What’s he up to?”

  “You got me,” said Gabrielle, shaking her head.

  Down below, Mowbray was on a roll, ratcheting up the suspense.

  “I refer to Senator Bill Dumaine of Massachusetts, who has agreed moments ago to become the Vice Presidential nominee... if you will accept him as I have!”

  The crowd roared like a room full of lions, jumping to its feet.

  “This great patriot has my vote to become the next Vice President of the United States, and I want to hear a vote—by acclamation—that you agree with me!”

  “This is a big surprise,” said Brian Williams up in the booth.

  “A total shock,” agreed Gabrielle.

  Dumaine came out onto the platform hand in hand with Bianca, Thuris and the rest of his entourage (including Tim, far to the rear), following close behind so that now there was a huge mob of staffers onstage. Dumaine moved over to Mowbray, clasped his hand and raised it in a victory salute to the delegates. After this photo op went on for a couple of minutes, both wives joined and all four of them stood there with arms held high.

  Then Mowbray, positively beaming, kissed Bianca, and leaned over to Dumaine.

  “Fire ’em up, Bill,” he said, and then stood back as Dumaine approached the podium with authority, his eyes feasting on the tumultuous spectacle before him.

  Looking down and all around him, he saw what he’d wanted to see as head of the Democratic ticket, but, even though he came in second, it was still the most thrilling moment of his life.

  He started with a series of “Thank you’s” that went on for a couple of minutes as the crowd continued to make it impossible to be heard over the din.

  Not wanting his ovation to last longer than Mowbray’s, Dumaine kept indicating for the crowd to “stop it, already,” raising his upside down palms over and over in an effort to get the delegates to take their seats.

  “Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Finally, the hullabaloo subsided enough for him to begin.

  “When Governor Mowbray, soon to be President—”

  Wild cheering interrupted him here.

  “When he first called me—only minutes ago—he appealed to me to join him in an immediate effort to unify the party...”

  Another raucous outburst. He offered the delegates a white-toothed smile as big as all time.

  “—and I think we’ve done that very quickly—”

  More cheering.

  “—but the thing that he impressed on me most was his ability to put past arguments aside and to keep our eyes set on a farther goal, an ultimate goal, a goal that is more important that any one individual—the all-important effort to recapture the White House in November.”

  Again, a cacophonous explosion of joy.

  “And I pledge my heart, and every fiber of my soul, to help him in this effort to give this Government by and for the people—back to the people!”

  The delegates erupted again.

  “Not only myself, but my wife and family—”

  He turned and glanced at Bianca.

  “—will do everything humanly possible, spare no effort, to achieve the goal we’ve set out to accomplish here in this hall tonight! God bless Douglas Mowbray. And God bless America!”

  The people jumped to their feet, flags waving, every lung yelling out, as a band struck up John Philip Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 20

  In a private study in the second floor Residence of the White House, President St. Clair sat watching Mowbray and Dumaine speak. The room was dark, with only a lamp on a walnut table across the room shining, as well as a floor lamp over the President’s chair. He sat with his son, Jack Houston St. Clair, who’d been good enough to come up from Miami to be with him over the weekend, and Nathaniel Lizniak, his senior political aide.

  “Interesting, isn’t it, Mr. President? That little trick tapping him tonight?”

  “I’d say it was a neat little trick, yes. Wish I’d thought of it. But then, our convention comes after theirs, so I can’t use it.”

  “No,” said Jack.

  “It’s not going to be a shoo-in, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, Mr. President,” said Lizniak.

  “We’re ahead now, but they’re gaining,” said Jack.

  “I still think we’re gonna kick their butts in November,” said the President. “Dumaine’s a loose cannon. Mowbray was a fool to tap him as his running mate, whether he taps him tonight or does it next week, doesn’t matter. I think we’ll be just fine.”

  Lizniak just raised his eyebrows.

  “We’ll see, Mr. President.”

  “The whole gang downstairs?”

  “Yes, sir. Just as you wanted. They’re putting together figures based on the bump the Democrats are expected to get from the last few days of their convention.”

  “Right. We’ll join them in a minute.”

  A soft knock at the door.

  “Yes?” St. Clair called out.

  A door quietly opened and a black-jacketed White House usher crept in.

  “Can I get you anything, Mr. President?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Lonnie—well, maybe a glass of port.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How about you?” St. Clair asked his guests.

  “Diet coke,” said Lizniak.

  “A Scotch for me,” said Jack. “The Lagavulin sixteen.”

  “Right away, sir,” said Lonnie, turning toward the door.

  “So you’re drinking the expensive stuff?” smiled the President.

  Jack smiled back.

  “Might as well. The taxpayers are paying.”

  “They most certainly are. They pay and pay and pay.” He turned to Lizniak. “My son has the absolute best taste in single malt Scotches, Nat.”

  “He’s known for that,” Lizniak laughed. “And his women.”

  “Woman!” Jack clarified with a laugh. “Wo-man! I am dedicated to Francesca.”

  The door was closing behind Lonnie when the President yelled out:

  “Oh, Lonnie!”

  Lonnie’s head reappeared in the crack of the door.

  “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “Forget the port. Make mine the same as Jack’s.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “And Lonnie?”

  “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “Better bring the bottle. We have a long night ahead of us.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 21

  Bianca paced back and forth in her suite. A single light shone from the far side of the room.

  She was going over all the ramifications involved with Bill’s acceptance of the second slot on the ticket, what this meant for his career, what it meant for her desire to make it to the White House, t
o be First Lady.

  There was a click in the door as the latch released. Phil slipped in and quickly closed the door behind him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Quite a night, huh?”

  Thuris began to loosen his tie.

  “You can’t stay.”

  Thuris pulled his tie off and started unbuttoning his shirt as he moved to the bar in the corner to pour a healthy portion of the Appleton Estate 21-year-old rum he liked.

  “I know, I know. The Secret Service has already added another detail. It’s going to be tougher and tougher to see each other except in closely guarded situations.”

  “What’s that file you have in your hands?”

  “It’s a ‘closely guarded situation.’ It’s a bunch of crap I’m ‘going over’ with you, scheduling matters with the kids, shit like that. I needed a reason to see you.”

  “Ah.”

  He took a long drink from his glass, savoring the mixed aromas of vanilla, orange peel, cocoa and a hint of almond. He really liked the 30-year-old rum put out by Appleton, but it wasn’t readily available all over the country. He looked over to Bianca.

  “Want something?”

  “Sure. Ketel One on the rocks.”

  She yawned and stretched. She began loosening her sash.

  He poured her drink and brought it over to her, giving her a kiss on the lips.

  “Here you go.”

  She took a long drink from the glass and placed it on the bedside table.

  “Where’s Bill?”

  “He’s turned in already. The Secret Service moved him to a more secure suite four floors down.”

  “Good.”

  “I waited for him to turn in before I came over.”

  “Like he would ever darken my door again.” She pulled off her blouse and bra, her breasts sagging under their natural weight. “And Tim?” she added unnecessarily.

  Thuris knocked back another two ounces of the Appleton 21.

  “He’s, well, he’s where Bill’s ‘Body Man’ ought to be, in the room next door.”

  “Sickening,” she said. “And dangerous.”

  “They’ve got to be just as careful as we do.”

  “More so.”

  “Why?”

  “They watch the candidate more than they do the wife. My security detail’s only half as large.”

  Thuris brought the bottle of Ketel One over and filled her glass halfway, then leaned over and kissed her again.

  “But they still watch. And they’re gonna keep on watching.” He raised a warning eyebrow, then went back to put the Ketel One bottle on the bar.

  “I’m glad you have a couple of ‘extra’ rooms so we can get together like this.”

  “Planning, planning, planning,” he said, his back to her as he refreshed his Appleton. “That’s what I do, Bianca: plan, plan, plan.”

  Bianca frowned as she looked at her breasts in a mirror.

  “Think I ought to get a boob job.”

  “A boob job?” he laughed. “No, I do not think you need a boob job.”

  “Maybe after we’re elected, of course. Can’t afford to take the time off from the campaign.”

  Thuris came back, slipping off his boxers as he crossed to her, cupping her breasts in both hands, kissing her again.

  “Your tits are just fine, honey, just fine with old Phil,” he leered playfully.

  He grabbed her under her arms and she squealed as he half lifted her onto the bed. He kissed her on the throat gently and was getting ready to make love when he suddenly stopped.

  “Why did you take the other side with the nod tonight?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed like the thing to do—it seemed like the thing that Bill was going to do, anyway. I understood in that flash that I’d rather move on—that I’d rather be the wife of the Vice President—than to be just another senator’s wife. And together, Mowbray and Bill can win, Phil.”

  “He’s an important U. S. Senator.”

  “There are a hundred senators—there’s only one Vice President, and only one Vice President’s wife.”

  “If we win, Mowbray can send him on trade missions for the next four years and you’ll never hear of Vice President Dumaine after that pattern is set, and you know it,” he said, kissing her breasts.

  “Hey, Phil, it’s worth a chance. Recent presidents have give the Vice President a lot more authority, a lot more prestige. Anyway, I’m ready for a change.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, rubbing between her legs. He was just this side of being a coarse lover in the Foreplay Department, Bianca thought. But once he got up to speed, he satisfied her.

  “I like change. Isn’t that why we’re fucking?”

  “You’re a hard woman, Bianca.”

  “And you’re a hard man, Phil,” she smiled. “Maybe that’s why we get along so well.”

  He smiled back, moving to enter her.

  “Maybe you’re right, Madam Vice President.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 22

  The full weight of the Secret Service fell on the campaign after the convention as full security details were assigned to the candidates.

  During their regular morning run, Bill and Tim usually jogged between a couple of agents ahead of them and a couple following behind. A Chevy Suburban followed further back. Bill made sure they were far enough away so he and Tim could talk.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Bill said when Tim suggested they launch the campaign right away instead of taking the usual break following the convention.

  Bill took up the matter with Mowbray that afternoon and Mowbray immediately endorsed the idea, even though everybody—in both camps—had been working at full tilt for many long, grueling months. But the staff responded enthusiastically, warming to the boldness of the idea.

  So, after only a two-day period to allow the candidates to rest, to chill out, to do nothing, they launched the campaign. This allowed them to take even fuller advantage of the traditional “bump” each party got as a result of non-stop media coverage during their conventions.

  Beginning just the third day after the convention, they launched the campaign with a huge tickertape parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue.

  The enormous crowds that turned out to see the venerated Mowbray and the dashingly handsome Dumaine kept the media blitz going strong during the period after the convention ended when it usually died down.

  Both staffs had to scramble to pull off this feat successfully. Not only were they all exhausted, each and every staffer on both sides. But they had not merged the two staffs into one cohesive operating entity.

  Still, both candidates wanted to take the offensive by plunging immediately into the campaign to oust St. Clair from the White House.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  “Turn that shit off,” President St. Clair commanded.

  Images of the parade and the jubilant music that accompanied the Democratic ticket down Fifth Avenue died in a flash, and St. Clair turned his gaze to take in about twenty senior staffers called to a large conference room in the Executive Office Building next door to the White House.

  “Well, in the words of a little boy I know, ‘This sucks!’” St. Clair said. But for all his levity, everyone in the room knew how worried the President was.

  “Mr. President—these people are getting to us. They’re getting closer. We’re still ahead in the polls, but the support is soft. It’s weak. It won’t hold. The economy’s killing us,” said one aide.

  “To paraphrase Chris Matthews, ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’” St. Clair said.

  Everybody laughed.

  “He looks so old,” said St. Clair added.

  “People say he’s distinguished, Mr. President.”

  “He’s old. He not distinguished,” St. Clair corrected. “He’s seventy-two. I’m sixty-eight.”

  “We’ve got to put Dumaine on the defensive, not Mowbray. People love Mowbray, but
Dumaine’s an unknown quantity. Remember how we were hoping that Dumaine would be the candidate?” said Lizniak.

  “Sure,” said an aide.

  “So we could rip the guy a new asshole,” said another one.

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s got a very prominent pedestal on the Foreign Relations Committee—and he’s used it very effectively this last term.”

  “Still, all in all, how many people follow the Foreign Relations Committee?” said Jack.

  Added Lizniak:

  “Let’s not forget that Dumaine got into the race late—he never had the name recognition nationwide that Mowbray did—Mowbray’s been running for the nomination for over two years. Outside the Beltway and little ol’ Wellfleet, Bill Dumaine’s not that much.”