Lewis Cole: Primary Storm Part 13

"So glad to meet you, Lewis. Enjoy yourself ... and someday, why don't you come play with us? It can be so much more fun than kibitzing from the sideline."

She moved into the crowd and Annie came up to me, we kissed, and she squeezed my hand and said, "I get here a few minutes late, and already I see you're trying to bed one of the wealthiest women in your state."

"I was?"

"Certainly. The former Mrs. George Whittaker, whose late husband was a developer who cheerfully raped the southern portion of the state and built lots and lots of malls and strip housing developments, and who ended up in the bottom of the Gulf of Maine some years ago. His wife has his fortune and not his politics, and she's been a heavy hitter and king-maker --- or queen-maker --- during the last three New Hampshire primaries. Having her in Senator Hale's corner has been a real break for him."

I now knew who owned the impressive Jaguar parked outside. I saw Audrey Whittaker pause and talk to some people, and then it clicked. I had seen her before, at the campaign rally where the shots had been fired. At the Tyler Conference Center, she had been holding court as well, but even though I now knew where I had noticed her before, something odd was niggling at me.

Annie squeezed my hand. "I'm starved. Let's get something to eat."

"And the senator?"

"Another thirty or so minutes out. We've got plenty of time." Still holding my hand, she led me through the crowded dining room and through a set of swinging doors that led into a kitchen, which looked like it belonged in a small restaurant. A catering crew was working there, and lots of pans and pots were being banged around, and steam was rising up from a couple of cooking stations. Annie let me be and came back a few minutes later, carrying two Sam Adams by their long necks, and two full plates, which she managed to balance on her wrists. I grabbed a plate and a beer and kissed her on her nose for her effort.

"Nice balancing act, Counselor," I said.

"Old waitressing trick. You never quite forget them, no matter how old you get. Let's find a quiet place."

Which we did. From another door we went into a small hallway leading to a breezeway that looked like it headed out to a garage or some other outbuilding. The breezeway had tall windows with recessed padded window seats, and we shared one while balancing the plates on our laps. Annie, knowing me so well, had filled my plate with scallops wrapped in bacon, slices of prime rib, rice pilaf, and a chunk of salad for roughage. I raised my bottle in salute.

"Thanks for dinner."

"Don't thank me, thank your new friend, Mrs. Whittaker."

"If I can, I will." I looked around the paneled walls and fine wooden floor and said, "How do you know your way in and around this place so well?"

Annie was being good in her food choices tonight, with lots of salad, lots of rice, and a couple of small pieces of haddock and a fine collection of steamed vegetables. Murmuring through her first bite, she said, "Been here a few other times for fund-raisers. Get to know the lay of the land after a while. Mrs. Whittaker is a real sweetheart in lending out her home to the campaign."

I ate some and said, "Ask you a campaign-related question?"

She delicately dabbed at her lips with a napkin. "As opposed to asking a bosom-related question?"

"That can come later. I was just wondering ... how many fund-raisers can one person like her support? I mean, I thought the federal limit on making campaign contributions is one thousand dollars per person. There must be a limit on one's pool of friends."

Annie smiled at me and raised up her bottle in a mock salute.

"One of these days, you really need to show me that cabbage patch you were raised in, my dear."

"What do you mean?"

"Yes, campaigns are limited to what they can receive. But not, quote, independent political action groups, unquote, which can get as much money as they want to pump up any message they want. Especially if said message by some wonderful coincidence manages to complement a certain campaign's message. Tonight's soiree is being held by something called the American Fund for America's Future. Or some such nonsense. But what it does is raise oodles and oodles of cash to help Senator Hale, without being constricted by the Federal Election Commission. Because it's a so-called independent committee, it can attack the other candidates and make them look bad without being an official part of the Hale campaign. Is this a great country, or what?"

"I don't know if I ever had political virginity," I replied, "but if I ever did, I think you just took it."

She gave me a wicked smile. "Keep on hanging around with me, and we'll see whatever forms of virginity are up for the taking."

We finished our meals and dropped off our dishes with the busy catering staff in the kitchen, and went out to the main dining hall, which was now even more crowded. There was a hum in the atmosphere, something antic.i.p.atory and electric, and I looked at all the young and old eager faces, all sizes and shapes, male and female, all of them looking forward to that one moment in time, the one in which they shared a room with the next president of the United States.

At the far wall was a doorway and a crowd of campaign officials, and I recognized one of them: the red-bearded gatekeeper who had tried to keep me out of the last disastrous campaign rally. Not wanting to encounter him yet again, I moved to another side of the room, just as Annie got swept up by a couple of her friends from the local campaign office and managed to wave at me as she was dragged away. I found myself standing by the bookcase as the door at the far wall opened and the cheers and applause began.

Senator Hale came into the room, accompanied by his lovely bride, and I took a breath, for seeing Barbara again rekindled those old thoughts and memories, and though I did my best to ignore them, they were still there. I was angry at myself for thinking of the times we spent in her apartment or my dorm room, the young and eager lovemaking and long, wonderful conversations that never seemed to go anywhere but always seemed so important, and both the conversations and the lovemaking had an energy to them that I had forgotten even existed.

And even though I knew that the pa.s.sage of time was a great editor, that my memories had been enhanced and cleaned up like some old photograph, the memories were still there, and I was surprised at how powerful they still were.

I looked for Annie again. I couldn't find her. That made me feel guilty for a moment, and then there was more movement and it was time for the politicking to begin.

I folded my arms and listened to Senator Hale go into his stump speech, as Barbara stood by his side. As he spoke, his face animated, his eyes lively, the gaze he gave out as if each and every single person in the room were his friend, I realized that he had it, the almighty "it" that separated mere mortals and mere politicians from those who would be president. There was energy and confidence and strength in his voice and his presence, and though the words on paper would most likely be the same cliches that other politicians, future and past, have used ("strength at home and abroad," "a compact with our old and young," "a nation with more than just friends, but true partners"), his gift brought them a certain power. The words seemed to roll over me with their strength, and I thought about the contribution envelope in my pocket and how now it seemed quite right to make a campaign donation.

I shook my head, no longer thinking about a possible contribution. I kept my focus on the senator from Georgia, seeing the light in his eyes. It must be a strange and horrible thing to have such a gift, for once your goal of being president is in sight and almost in hand, would anything else ever be as worthwhile, ever again?

The applause startled me. His speech was over, Barbara still at his side, and right then and there, in the close confines of this magnificent home in Wallis, I knew two things: I was looking at the next president of the United States, and I was being used by someone to prevent that event from happening.

Chapter Ten.

The crowd jostled and people moved around, and in the movement of people about me, I started looking for Annie. Somebody b.u.mped me hard, propelling me between two older women, and before I had a chance to apologize, Senator Jackson Hale was there, right before me. He smiled and I found myself smiling back, and I shook his hand as he said, "Thanks for coming tonight, appreciate it."

I said not a word as he moved past me, and then, I found myself facing his wife. She had a bemused smile on her face as she shook my hand as well.

"So nice to see you," Barbara said.

"Me, too," I said, as I felt a slip of paper pressed into my hand. She joined her husband and maybe the smart or rational thing would have been to drop the piece of paper on the floor.

Instead, I slipped it into a pocket, and went to find Annie.

I found her in a corner, talking to a couple of energetic young men, and they looked closely at me as I approached, as if I were her father, ready to collect her after the junior high school dance. It was good to see her work, good to see her fulfilling her pa.s.sion, her dream, and that little surge of affection seemed to drive away the thought of Barbara and the mysterious slip of paper. As I got closer to her and her friends, she said, " ... and that's why importing a lot of out-of-state talent to knock on doors, day after day, doesn't work. Just p.i.s.ses off the voters. The locals don't want to be told how to vote by a lot of eager out-of-staters who think they're smarter than everybody else."

As I came up to her she squeezed my hand and turned and said, "Get me out of here, will you?"

"Sure," I said.

As we walked away, I said, "Must be nice to be so popular."

"Yeah, right," she said. "I've been with the Hale campaign for six months, and that makes me an old vet."

I thought of something and said, "Saw a familiar face tonight. Guy with a red beard. He was running media interference at the conference center rally. Who is he?"

"Hah," she said. "You've got a good eye for imported a.s.sholes. That's Harmon Jewett, campaign flak for the senator. From Georgia, a true believer but with a temper that can curl paint off the side of a house from fifty yards. He was with Hale when Hale was just a state senator, and helped manage his congressional campaign. Said ten years ago, if you can believe it, that Jackson Hale would be the next president and he'd kill his own grandmother to make it so. And that little story has made more than one reporter look into the circ.u.mstances of that poor woman's death."

"So why is he up here in New Hampshire?"

Annie grimaced for a moment. "One of the senator's least best traits is loyalty, combined with forgiveness. He's never forgotten that Harmon got him started in politics and managed to usher him through some very tough campaigns. So the senator keeps him on, even in a job as simple as a media gatekeeper. But that temper ... once it lets go it could really hurt the senator. Any other guy would have cut Harmon loose years ago. But not our Jackson."

We gathered our coats from the official coat drop-off place and stepped outside, Annie also carrying a bulky over-the-shoulder leather bag. I think we both shivered at about the same time as we went down the stone steps. It was d.a.m.n cold, but the stars sure looked fine. I stopped to admire my favorite constellation, Orion, rising up in all his glory in the east, the mighty hunter, his club holding arm still there, at the ready, thousands and thousands of years later.

Annie nudged me in the side. "Come along, star boy. I want to get to your place before some of my favorite --- and your favorite --- extremities start freezing."

I looked around the rapidly emptying lot. "Where's your car?"

"In Manchester, silly. I got a ride from some of the staff. You don't mind bringing me back to Manchester tomorrow, do you? Please, pretty please? I'll be your best friend .... "

And then I knew that bag she was carrying contained a change of clothes and other essential items. Sometimes even when I was being observant, I could be as blind as a chaplain at a cathouse.

My Annie, always thinking.

I tried to keep thoughts of the Lafayette House and the mysterious piece of paper, weighing down my coat like a chunk of lead, out of the way. I leaned over, kissed her. '"I'd take you to Manchester, England, if that's what you'd like."

"What I'd like," she said, her voice just a touch curt, "is to go someplace warm."

And someplace warm is where we ended up.

At home I built a fire and went to my liquor cabinet-all right, the s.p.a.ce next to the handful of spices and condiments that I have managed to collect over the years-and pulled down a bottle of Australian sherry. I poured some in tiny sherry gla.s.ses and set them on the counter. Annie was on her cell phone, talking campaign talk yet again, and when she moved to the sliding gla.s.s doors that led out to the deck, I went back to the fire and looked at what Barbara had handed me.

It was a slip of notebook paper, from the Center of New Hampshire hotel and conference center in Manchester, with a short note: Room 410, between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. B.

I reread it and tossed it into the flames, where it curled up and disappeared. Annie's voice rose a bit and then she said, "Fine!" and snapped her cell phone shut. "a.s.shole," she murmured, and she came into the living room and said, "You might not like this."

"All right, try me," I said.

"There's an all-hands meeting tomorrow at seven A.M. Which means ---"

Ugh. "It means getting up early. That's all right."

She raised the gla.s.s of sherry. "Take our drinks and go to bed?"

"Absolutely."

We climbed into bed after tumbling out of our clothes, and as I held my sherry gla.s.s, Annie leaned against my shoulder. I said, "Your feet are cold."

"Tell me something new."

"I mean really, really cold. Were you eating ice cream with your toes before going to bed?"

In response, she moved her feet briskly up and down my shins, causing me to shiver. "There," she said, "take that, you insensitive man."

"My legs are now insensitive," I said. "Not sure about anything else. Hold on while I try to warm up."

I took a stiff swallow of the sweet sherry and Annie said, "I ever tell you the two types of campaign people?"

"No, but I think you're about to."

"Meanie," she said.

Annie knocked her sherry back with one swallow and said, "Two types. Type one is the true believer. He or she really believes in his or her candidate, will follow the candidate around the country, will work for free pizza and a place to crash on the floor at two A.M. These are the ones who man the phones, stuff envelopes, and go door-to-door handing out campaign brochures, and will stand outside in a polling place on primary day, holding a sign, in the pouring rain, sleet, or snow. They can be a bit nutty but you can't run a campaign without them. They get teased, they get overlooked, but you can't kill them. They're like those blow-up clowns that you can punch in the head. They always bounce back."

"I think I know who the second group are."

She nuzzled my ear. "Then you've been paying attention these past months, Gra.s.shopper. But let me remind you. The second type are the professionals. The poll takers, the money men and women, the consultants. They parachute in and try to st.i.tch things together so that the true believers don't run things into the ground. Sometimes they believe in the candidate and sometimes they hate him or her. A lot of it depends on who's paying the most ... and in a campaign, a lot of times, a lot of energy that should be spent on the actual campaign is spent on gossip, revenge, and b.i.t.c.hing over who has the biggest office. You would not believe some of the war stories I've heard since I've been with the campaign."

"And what does this have to do with the meeting at seven?"

"Oh, one of the pros wants to rein in us amateurs. Stop playing around and focus on winning the d.a.m.n primary, and don't be so pie-in-the-sky, trying to be everything to all voters. We have a candidate who is hungry for this win, despite his wife, so knock off the amateur hour. Blah, blah, blah."

I carefully put my now empty sherry gla.s.s on the nightstand.

"What do you mean, despite his wife? I thought she wanted to become first lady in the worst way. And that she didn't make any secret of it."

Annie laughed and rolled over. "Lewis, I don't know what she was like in college, but Mrs. Senator Hale is one prime b.i.t.c.h diva, and coming from one who admires prime b.i.t.c.h divas, that says a lot. She hates campaigns, hates campaigning, and most days, she's a G.o.dd.a.m.n drag on the campaign."

"I see."

She finished her own sherry and said, "So ... do tell me. What was she like in college?"

"Barbara?"

"No, silly, the mysterious woman who lives in your bas.e.m.e.nt, that's who."

"Oh," I said. "Very fair question. We worked on the student newspaper, which is where we met. Typical student paper for the time. Lots of long hours into the night, writing and composing and pasting up. Sometimes you'd skip cla.s.ses to be able to work on the newspaper. I'm sure I lost a point or two on my grade point average due to all the time I spent there."

"What was the name of the newspaper?"

"The Indiana Daily Student."

She laughed. "Such an original name. What else can you tell me about her?"

"Typical college student, I guess. Full of energy and the feeling that once you get out, you can do anything ... Long story short, we dated for a while, and then summer came and we went off to our respective internships. I did one at The Indianapolis Star. She wanted to dabble some in politics, so she went to D.C. to work for a congressman. I came back to Bloomington and she stayed in D.C. End of story."

Well, sort of, I thought, thinking about the note I had received earlier.

"She break your heart?"

"At the time, yeah."

"b.i.t.c.h," Annie said, and we both laughed and Annie then sighed and said, "Dear one, do cuddle me and keep me warm, will you? I'm about ready to fall asleep, and it'll be so much better if you're holding me at the time."

I turned the light off and rolled over, holding Annie in the dark. We nuzzled and kissed for a while, her warm body --- now even including her feet --- in my grasp, and I held her for a time in the darkness, hearing her breathing deepen and slow, as she fell asleep.

It took me a long while to join her.

To get from Tyler Beach to Manchester is pretty much a straight shot, from Route 101 all the way west to the interior of our fair state. It's a trip of just under an hour, and we both skipped breakfast before we left, though Annie did find time for a quick shower. Her fine red hair was still wet as we joined the other travelers on the two-lane highway, the rising sun shadowing us as we raced west. I listened to a bit of the morning news as I drove, hearing about a snowstorm heading our way this evening, and then I got a look from my companion, and switched the radio off, as she dug her cell phone from her purse.

For most of the time we drove, Annie was on the cell phone, checking with her staff, coordinating the logistics of a luncheon meeting later that day, and basically juggling about a half dozen questions, concerns, and complaints. It sounds odd but while any other man may have felt ignored or slighted at the lack of attention, I felt a sense of pride. She was d.a.m.n good at what she was doing. The highway raced through mostly open rural areas that were only developed with homes and service stations at the different exits, and though the speed limit was sixty-five and I kept my Ford Explorer at seventy, I was pa.s.sed on several occasions.