“When exactly do you plan to relocate?” Fontenot said, ac-cepting his cup with a ready Eisenhower grin.
“Oh, nineteen hundred hours. Maybe. That’s what the com-mander had in mind this morning.”
“Your commander looks a bit tired,” Oscar said.
That remark made the PR man angry. He put down his bour-bon and looked at Oscar with eyes like two shucked oysters. “Yeah. That’s right. My commander is tired. He broke his sworn oath of allegiance, and he’s robbing U.S. citizens, the people he swore to protect. That tends to tire you out.”
Oscar listened attentively.
“Y’know, the commander here was given no choice. No choice at all. It was pull this stunt, or watch his people starving in their barracks. There’s no funding now. There’s no fuel, no pay for the troops, no equipment, there is nothing. All because you silk-suit sons of bitches in Washington can’t get it together to pass a budget.”
“My man just got to Washington,” Oscar said. “We need a chance.”
“My man here is a decorated officer! He was in Panama Three, Iraq Two, he was in Rwanda! He’s no politician — he’s a goddamn national hero! Now the feds are cracking up, and the Governor’s gone crazy, but the commander, he’ll be the fall guy for this. When it’s all over, he’ll be the man who has to pay for everything. The committees will break him in half”
Oscar was calm. “That’s why I have to work in Washington.”
“What’s your party?”
“Senator Bambakias was elected with a thirty-eight percent plu-rality,” Oscar said. “He isn’t tied to any single party doctrine. He has multipartisan appeal.”
The PR man snorted. “What’s your party, I said.”
“Federal Democrat.”
“Aw Jesus.” The man ducked his head and waved one hand.
“Go home, Yankee. Go get a life.”
“We were just leaving,” Fontenot said, putting aside his un-touched bourbon. “You happen to know a good local restaurant? A Cajun place, I mean? It has to seat a dozen of us.”
The young guard at the door saluted politely as they left the hospital-ity building. Oscar carefully slipped his federal ID back into his eelskin wallet. He waited until they were well out of earshot before he spoke. “He may be dead drunk, but that guy sure knows the local restau-rants.”
“Journalists always remember these things,” Fontenot said wisely. “Y’know something? I know that guy. I met him once, at Battledore’s in Georgetown. He was doing lunch with the Vice President at the time. I can’t remember his name now for the life of me, but that’s his face all right. He was a big-name foreign correspondent once, a big wheel on the old TV cable nets. That was before they outed him as a U.S. infowar spook.”
Oscar considered this. As a political consultant, he had naturally come to know many journalists. He had also met a certain number of spooks. Journalists certainly had their uses in the power game, but spooks had always struck him as a malformed and not very bright subspecies of political consultant. “Did you happen to tape that little discussion we just had?”
“Yeah,” Fontenot admitted. “I generally do that. Especially when I’m dead sure that the other guy is also taping it.”
“Good man,” Oscar said. “I’ll be skimming the highlights of that conversation and passing them on to the Senator.”
Oscar and Fontenot’s relations during the campaign had always been formal and respectful. Fontenot was twice Oscar’s age, canny, and paranoid, always entirely and utterly serious about assuring the physical safety of the candidate. With the campaign safely behind them, though, Fontenot had clearly been loosening. Now he seemed inspired by a sudden attack of sincerity. “Would you like a little ad-vice? You don’t have to listen, if you don’t want to.”
“You know I always listen to your advice, Jules.”
Fontenot looked at him. “You want to be Barnbakias’s chief of staff in Washington.”
Oscar shrugged. “Well, I never denied that. Did I ever deny it?”
“Stick with your Senate committee job, instead. You’re a clever guy, and I think maybe you could accomplish something in Washing-ton. I’ve seen you run those hopeless goofballs in your krewe like they were a crack army, so I just know you could handle a Senate commit-tee. And something’s just gotta get done.” Fontenot looked at Oscar with genuine pain. “America has lost it. We can’t get a grip. Goddammit, just look at all this! Our country’s up on blocks.”
“I want to help Bambakias. He has ideas.”
“Bambakias can give a good speech, but he’s never lived a day inside the Beltway. He doesn’t even know what that means. The guy’s an architect.”
“He’s a very clever architect.”
Fontenot grunted. “He wouldn’t be the first guy who mistook intelligence for political smarts.”
“Well, I suppose the Senator’s ultimate success depends on his handlers. The Senate krewe, the entourage. His staff.” Oscar smiled. “Look, I didn’t hire you, you know. Bambakias hired you. The man can make good staff decisions. All he needs is a chance.”
Fontenot flipped up his yellow coat collar. It had begun to drizzle.
Oscar spread his manicured hands. “I’m only twenty-eight years old. I don’t have the necessary track record to become a Senator’s chief of staff. And besides, I’m about to have my hands full with this Texas science assignment.”
“And besides,” Fontenot mimicked, “there’s your little personal background problem.”
Oscar blinked. It always gave him an ugly moment of vertigo to hear that matter mentioned aloud. Naturally Fontenot knew all about the “personal background problem.” Fontenot made knowing such things his business. “You don’t hold that problem against me, I hope.”
“No.” Fontenot lowered his voice. “I might have. I’m an old man, I’m old-fashioned. But I’ve seen you at work, so I know you better now.” He thumped his artiftcialleg against the ground. “That’s not why I’m leaving you, Oscar. But I am leaving. The campaign’s over, you won. You won big. I’ve done a lot of campaigns in my day, and I really think yours may have been the prettiest I ever saw. But now I’m back home to the bayous, and it’s time for me to leave the business. Forever. I’m gonna see your convoy safely through to Buna, then I’m outta here.”
“I respect that decision, I truly do,” Oscar said. “But I’d prefer it if you stayed on with us — temporarily. The crew respects your profes-sional judgment. And the Buna situation might need your security skills.” Oscar drew a breath, then started talking with more focus and intensity. “I haven’t exactly broken this to our boys and girls on the bus, but I’ve been scoping out the Buna situation. And this delightful Texas vacation retreat that’s our destination tonight — basically, it looks to me like a major crisis waiting to happen.”
Fontenot shook his head. “I’m not in the market for a major crisis. I’ve been looking forward to retirement. I’m gonna fish, I’m gonna hunt a little. I’m gonna get myself a shack in the bayou that has a stove and a fryin’ pan, and no goddamn nets or telephones, ever, ever again.”
“I can make it worth your while,” Oscar coaxed. “Just a month, all right? Four weeks till the Christmas holidays. You’re still on salary, as long as you’re with us. I can double that if I have to. Another month’s pay.”
Fontenot wiped rain from his hat brim. “You can do that?”
“Well, not directly, not from the campaign funds, but Pelicanos can handle it for us. He’s a wizard at that sort of thing. Two months’ salary for one month’s work. And at Boston rates, too. That might swing the earnest money on your standard bayou shack.”
Fontenot was weakening. “Well, you’ll have to let me think that over.”
“You can have weekends.”
“Really?”
“Three-day weekends. Since you’re looking for a place to live.”
Fontenot sighed. “Well…”
“Audrey and Bob wouldn’t mind doing some real-estate scan-ning for you. They’re world-class oppo research people, and they’re just killing time out here. So why should you get taken in a house deal? They can scare you up a dream home, and even a decent real-estate agent.”