The audience applauded warmly when he finished. A few even stood. Mike Glint came out onstage to thank him and to tell the crowd that he had demonstrated that he was “someone we can work with.”
“Well?” Randy said when the two of them were in the car. Cass had been somewhat quiet. He had the exhausted but exhilarated air of a politician who has just heard the sound of a thousand hands clapping. “Was it good for you, too?”
“Yeah,” Cass said coolly. “I had multiple orgasms.”
“Well, what on earth is eating you? In case you didn’t notice, I just killed.”
“You’ve been doing deals.”
“Just a little back-channel dialoguing.”
“I knew you’d do it.”
“Don’t be a downer, darling. Come on-they ate it up. Veni, vidi, vici. Let’s go roast an ox, drink the best wine in Gaul.”
“Which of our fundamental principles did you trade away first? No, don’t tell me. Let me read about it in The Washington Post.”
“Cassandra. We have to do business with these folks.”
“No, we don’t. God-you’re such a…”
“What?”
“Senator.”
“I didn’t realize,” Randy said archly, “that it was a term of opprobrium.”
Chapter 20
Cass didn’t have to wait long. Three days later, ABBA announced that it would support Senator Jepperson’s Voluntary Transitioning proposal, and co-sponsor Senator Fundermunk of Oregon had disappeared into a northwest mist. “With the proviso,” as Mitch Glint said at his press conference, “that the final legislation reflects ABBA’s input.”
In Washington, “input” means “demands.” ABBA’s input consisted of several truckloads of Boomer pork. Cass read down the list with mounting despair: a Botox subsidy? Tax deductions for-Segways? Grandchild day care allowance? The blood throbbed in her temples. Then she came to the real eyebrow raiser: “Mr. Glint further said that Senator Jepperson had ‘indicated a willingness to raise the threshold age of Transitioning from 70 to 75.’ ”
He gave it all away, she thought. He gave away the entire store.
She angrily punched the speed-dial button on her cell phone. His emergency cell number, to be used only in the event of a nuclear strike or his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Randy answered in a whisper, indicating that he was on the Senate floor. The Senate, bowing to OmniTel, the powerful cell phone and PDA lobby, had relaxed the rules so that senators and congressmen were now permitted to use phones on the floor, even during speeches. They were still banned during the joint session for the president’s State of the Union address, but OmniTel’s lobbyists were working on it.
“Before you go getting varicose veins,” Randy said, “would you like to hear the good news?”
“There is no good news,” Cass said. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve made Transitioning completely pointless, even as a meta-issue. Under the Jepperson plan, it will now cost the Treasury.”
“Are you finished?”
“No. Not nearly.”
“Would you please lower your voice? They can hear you clear across the aisle. Hush. As of this morning, and as a direct result of my willingness to meet them halfway-”
“Halfway? Halfway? Are you kidding? You met them in your own end zone!”
“May I continue? We now have thirty-five votes for Transitioning. Barzine and Wanamaker just came aboard. And Quimby says he’ll vote for it. The older senators have been taking in so much in campaign contributions from ABBA, they now have no choice but to come aboard. Isn’t that marvelous? Of course, with Quimby you never know how he’s going to actually vote. Silly old ass.…”
“Randy,” Cass pleaded in a calmer tone of voice, “these concessions…if you raise the age to seventy-five-don’t you see, it’s meaningless? There won’t be any savings. There’s no point-”
“Darling. Darling. It’s a meta-issue.”
“That’s not the point.”
“We’ll fine-tune it. Don’t worry. I’ve got to go. Call me later. I’ve got some interesting news for you.”
“I don’t want any more news from you.”
“My man Speck checked in. I think you’ll want to hear it.”
Cass pressed “End.” “End” was the new hang-up.
She wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him on the floor of the U.S. Senate. She was so mad, she didn’t care what his myrmidon Speck had to report.
ABBA’s endorsement of Transitioning made the front page. Randy’s proposal that Americans kill themselves in return for tax breaks, a bill that had begun as a turd in the Capitol Hill punch bowl, had now attracted the support of one-third of the U.S. Senate. And this made Randy front-page news.
JEPPERSON EMERGES AS SURPRISING FORCE IN DEBATE OVER “VOLUNTARY TRANSITIONING”
Within several days, there were more headlines:
WHITE HOUSE SAID TO VIEW JEPPERSON AS SPOILER IN COMING CAMPAIGN
JEPPERSON DOES NOT RULE OUT POSSIBLE PRESIDENTIAL RUN
“Was this ABBA deal your idea?” Terry said, standing in the doorway of Cass’s office, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
“No,” Cass snapped.
“Just asking. Have we not had our morning Prozac?”
“He totally sandbagged me.”
“Surprise. Did you see the story about how he’s thinking of running for-”
“Yes.”
Terry closed the door and sat in front of Cass’s desk. “Are you pissed off specifically at me, or just with the human race in general?”
“I’m mad at myself.”
“For putting your trust in a politician? Or for-”
“Go ahead,” she groaned. “For sleeping with him? It just happened. It does happen, you know. You’re on the road and-”
“The road,” Terry said. “That’s good. The road did it.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Well, look at it this way. You fucked him before he fucked you. Does that help?”
“Thanks,” Cass said. “I feel so much better.”
“Do you want me to hire you a grief counselor? Do you know what those people make? Weird niche, when you think about it. What do they do, come to work every morning hoping there’s been a plane crash?” Terry said hesitantly, “You, uh, saw about Gideon Payne?”
“No.”
“Oh. He…What a fat little dick.”
“Just tell me.”
“He gave a speech last night in West Virginia. Wheeling. Traditional venue for dramatic speeches. Your name came up.”
“Terry, you’re burying the lead.”
“Oh, he said he had some evidence that you and Randy were, uh, doing some pretty hot and heavy fact-finding in the minefield. Also, he called you ‘Joan of Dark.’”
“Hm,” Cass said, “not a bad line.”
“I’m sure someone thought it up for him.”
“Yes,” Cass said. “Someone clever. What evidence?”
“Ignore it. He’s just trying to get back at you for calling him a mother killer.”
“Don’t be avuncular,” Cass said, “or I’ll cry.”
“Change of subject. So. Our boy wants to be president. Did he mention this while you two were playing hide the salami?”
“That’s completely heinous.”
“Give these guys one good headline and suddenly they’re hearing a chorus of voices. A call he cannot-must not-ignore. The will of the people.”
“I don’t see it, personally. And I’m not being disloyal saying that.”
Terry snorted. “No. But I wouldn’t exclude it. It’s America. Land of the free, home of the strange. In 1991-you were in diapers-the president of the United States had an approval rating of ninety percent. He’d just won a spectacular war in the Persian Gulf. Eighteen months later, he lost reelection to a horny governor from Arkansas.”