“Rough draft?”
“First shit happens, then history gets written down. Got a guy on his way’s gonna look things over, decide what history is.”
“He who controls the present,” Clarke said.
“Yeah, well, you, me, and Orwell, we’re gonna go see the old man.” Riley looked over, saw Clarke looking at him. “What, you think I can’t read?”
Clarke was thinking, if they put the fix in, I may still have a play here.
Mayor Hurley stood looking out the window of his spacious, spartan office on the fifth floor of City Hall, facing the plaza to the east, where the new Picasso sculpture stood. The wind drove small, scattered flecks of snow through the spotlights that lit the sculpture.
The mayor was so different from the son. Junior had been tall, lean, dark Irish. The mayor was short, stocky, ruddy, yet emanated power like a scent. Clarke had never understood the relationship between father and son. The son was devoted to ending the corrupt politics for which his father was practically the Platonic form. No real emotional connection between them that Clarke could see — no real emotional connection between the mayor and anyone. But the mayor put the full force of his machine behind the son, and the son had an intense personal loyalty to his father.
“Fucking statue, still don’t get it,” said Hurley.
“Pardon?”
“The Picasso. Junior’s idea, you know. Public art, he says, so we can be a great city, like New York or Paris. Like we ain’t a great city already. Like I gotta put a fucking steel monkey in the middle of the Loop so we can be a great city.”
“Picasso is genius. Subjective as individual works may be, to have his work on so prominent a stage.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make all the art critics in the world gush about us. Course you could move all the art critics in the world into the same damn place and you wouldn’t have a city, you’d have a village, cause there’s maybe a couple hundred of em, and the village wouldn’t need an idiot. And then they’d all starve cause they don’t know how to do nothing. What I like about it? The Picasso? I look out on a nice day in the summer, and I see the kids climbing up that slanty part at the bottom and sliding down. Got the parents standing there, trying to figure out is it a baboon or what, and their kids play on it. I like that. Some guy from the Art Institute came to tell me I gotta keep them kids off it, that it was sacrilege or some shit. Scrawny atheist fuck in my office talking about sacrilege. Told him that Picasso might be a drunk and can’t keep his pants zipped, but at least he makes a decent slide.”
The mayor didn’t move, hands clasped in the small of his back, still facing the window, silent again. Clarke couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” he said, “about David.”
The mayor nodded. “You was his friend, Junior always said that. Said you did good work for him. Said you was loyal to him. You and me, we got our differences. But you were good to my boy. I ain’t gonna forget that.”
Clarke didn’t buy the personal emotions, he knew he was being handled. The mayor was as close to a sociopath as anyone Clarke had ever known. “Thank you, sir. He was a great man. I am proud of what I’ve been able to do with him.”
“Still proud, after tonight?”
“I, eh, I didn’t know…”
“About the queer thing? Yeah, I know. I thought about it, maybe over the years. Seen this and that made me think. I wondered should I have said something. But there’s things you don’t wanna think, not about your own boy. Then he got married, and with the wife and the kid on the way and all, I thought maybe he’d be OK.”
“It shouldn’t define him, a single weakness. It shouldn’t become all he was. It shouldn’t be used to tarnish what he stood for.”
He could see the mayor nodding.
“It ain’t gonna. Nobody’s gonna know. Not ever. You understand that?”
“Riley told me.”
“I’m not asking did Riley tell you. I’m asking do you understand that nobody’s ever gonna know?”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
Another long silence. The mayor spoke first this time.
“Junior was right, you know, about me, about how I run things. Not the way it oughta be. It was different times I come up in. You got your Hitlers and such, and nobody’s worrying too much how do you beat the son of a bitch. You do what you gotta do. And then I get this job, and see so much that needs doin’ and everybody wantin’ to chinwag everything to death. And so maybe I find some corners to cut and strings to pull, and pretty soon, I look back and I got sick fucks like Stosh running things just cause he’s got half the city by the balls. And now I gotta live with did I get my own kid killed.”
“It does need to change, sir.” Clarke was being probed, he could feel it. Hurley could write history any way he wanted, but Clarke would always have the rough draft, so Hurley needed him.
“Such a waste. He was our chance. Move away from all this crap, reach out to the next generation. There’s Billy, of course, but he ain’t got it, not like Junior did.” Billy was the mayor’s other son, just finishing college.
Careful here, thought Clarke. “It doesn’t need to be a waste, sir.”
Hurley finally turned away from the window. “You got something to say, spit it out.”
“You need a bridge to the new generation, and you need a placeholder until Billy is ready to take the stage.”
Hurley’s eyes glinted, almost the hint of a smile, seeing right through to Clarke’s play. “You think you’re the solution.”
Clarke nodded. “You’ve never really gotten to know me. You saw the Ivy League polish, and you wrote me off as some pantywaist. But you and I have the same ideology.”
“Only ideology I got is power,” said Hurley.
“Exactly. Whatever it is you want to do, you have to have power first.”
“So you want me to slot you into Junior’s place?”
“Given recent events, we would have the assurance of each other’s fealty.”
“You get a ticket to the big show, and I get a pet senator?”
“Within reason.”
Hurley walked back to the credenza, pulled a bottle of Jameson’s from the cabinet, poured some into a couple of highball glasses, handed one to Clarke.
“Never work. No secret around town how you and me get along. I put you up, you’d look like a poodle on a leash.”
“We can get around that.”
Hurley put a hand up, shushing Clarke. He walked back to the window for a minute, sipping his whiskey, then turned back.
“Here’s what we do. You declare. You’re the independent taking up Junior’s flag. Press’ll eat that shit up. They love to give it to me in the chops anyway. All those hippie loonies, they’ll flock to you. Meanwhile, I pick out some schmuck, run him in the primary. My side takes a dive, we get some of the vote out your way under the table. You’re the underdog who takes down the machine. Comes the general election, I got no choice but to back the party side.”
Clarke thought for a moment. It was brilliant. But it could also be a ploy. Could be a way for Hurley to buy his silence long enough that Clarke couldn’t ever come forward, then cut him off at the knees, have his guy actually win, send Clarke packing. It could be, but it didn’t feel that way. There’s always a moment when you have to take that leap.
“Smart play. I’ll give it a few days, lay low, grieving, get through the funeral. But you announce your candidate first — somebody out of the machine. Then I’m outraged. I have to step forward in Junior’s memory.”
“Right way to play it,” said Hurley, nodding. “Just remember one thing here. We got each other by the balls. I’ve been at this a long time, had mine twisted before. You try to cross me, I’ll rip yours off.”
“Yes, sir,” said Clarke.
Hurley let out a soft snort.
“What?” Clarke said.
“The assurance of each other’s fealty? You wanna make it in this town, you better stop talking like that. Your Ivy League crap don’t carry no weight around here.”