His campaign manager was talking to him. Perhaps he should listen? Though why, really? Well, one had to be polite.
“Right,” the President said. “Good point.”
“Sorry, sir?” the campaign manager said.
“What you were saying. I agree. I’ll hit that point hard.”
“Right,” the campaign manager said diffidently. “Probably best to stay off the POTUS thing. It could open us up to the, well, the Cartwright… you know. Now, on the border mining,” he said. “The numbers are pretty clear there.”
The President, suddenly alert, said, “Charley.”
“I know sir, but-”
“I don’t care what the numbers are.”
“I’m only pointing out that-”
“Charley. I don’t care if every citizen, man, woman, and child, of Texas, of New Mexico, Arizona, California, or Guam for that matter is in favor of mining the gosh-darn border with Mexico. The United States Constitution says, in blazing neon letters, that individual states may not engage in their own foreign policies. It’s just not up for discussion.”
“That may be, sir, but four states legislatures are about to-”
“Make fools of themselves.”
“Agreed. All I’m just suggesting is that we… that a little tactical ambiguity would go a long way toward-”
“ ‘Tactical ambiguity’? Charley. Is that what you think of me?”
“No, sir. Never mind.”
“I appreciate what you’re doing for me, Charley. I do. I know it’s an unusual campaign.”
“When you go out onstage, you’ll walk toward each other, meet midstage, shake hands, go to your respective podiums. Now, he may try to pat you on the back or the shoulder. We have made it clear to his people that we do not want any pitty-patting, but I don’t trust them. So when you shake his hand, do it face on so he can’t reach your shoulder.”
“Why don’t I give him a kiss,” the President said. “Full, on the lips. Our tongues melting into each other’s, our bodies touching, becoming as one, heaving…”
Charley stared.
“I read that in a book when I was fifteen years old,” President Vanderdamp said. “It was a spy novel. Not a very good one. Pretty awful, actually. But at the time I thought it was the sexiest, steamiest thing I could ever imagine. Now, my Lord, you can’t turn on a television without seeing bodies writhing. I love this country, Charley, but I worry for it. What young people today see… Well,” he smiled, “I’ll try to restrain myself from making mad, passionate love to President Lovebucket.”
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“This campaign, honestly? It’s the most bass-ackward thing I’ve ever worked on. I don’t get it. But however it turns out, I want to say, it’s an honor working for you. You’re a decent guy.”
“Well, thank you, Charley,” the President smiled. “In the unlikely event they ever give me a statue, I’ll have that put on it. A decent guy.”
An aide opened the door and said, “Ready, Mr. President.”
President Vanderdamp stood, buttoned his jacket, patted his necktie.
“Battle stations. I used to say that in the navy. Course, those were only exercises, but it always gave me goose bumps. Battle stations…”
“Oh, on that…”
“Um?”
“The Nimitz thing? Maybe best to avoid…”
“Yes, Charley,” the President said.
I KNEW THIS was going to lead to dessert,” Pepper said. “Man does not live by entrée alone.”
They were in a hotel. A nice one, in out-of-the-way Foggy Bottom. Pepper, having a net worth approximately twenty times Declan’s, had made the reservation on her credit card. They had arrived half an hour apart so as to avoid being spotted together. If it had a furtive aspect-and it did-it was for a reason: photographers, alerted by the item about their cozy dinner at Stare Decisis, had begun staking out Declan’s Kalorama apartment and Pepper’s on Connecticut Avenue near the zoo, in hopes of getting a shot of the two of them emerging together early in the morning; perhaps holding hands or sharing a foamy latte.
“Does this feel at all… dirty to you?” Pepper said.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it,” Declan said. “But it certainly feels strange.”
“Feels ‘strange’ to me, too. Well, shall we get out legal pads and analyze it?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be here,” Declan said, staring out the window. “I mean I’m practically bursting with intent.”
“There’s just nothing sexier than making love to a lawyer. Makes me all over quivery.”
Declan blanched.
“What’s wrong?” Pepper said.
“Tony said something like that to me once. And I couldn’t”-his cheeks now filled with color: red-“perform.”
“Honey, she was gay. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself.”
“Maybe we should analyze it. Maybe a little discovery is in order.”
“Maybe a little getting under the covers is in order. Baby?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to take off your overcoat? Feels like making it with a flasher.”
“Good point. Jesus, Pep,” he sighed soulfully.
“Keep taking off the coat. That’s it. Now how about the jacket? There you go…”
“Six months ago I was happily married.”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “Married, okay. Happily? Let’s look at it. But could we maybe be in the now instead of the then?”
“Sorry, I’m so damned awkward sometimes. Do you like the top or the bottom?”
Pepper stared. “This ain’t summer camp, and I ain’t a bunk bed. Now look here, Chiefy, we are two grown adults, we are colleagues, we have discovered a mutual attraction. We are neither of us cheating on anyone, inasmuch as our spouses filed for divorce. We are both heterosexual-”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a statement of fact intended to differentiate myself from your prior partner for the purpose of putting you at ease so as to… oh, c’mere… initiate foreplay… um… yes… so as to stimulate the… mmmm… stim… u… late… the senses in such a manner as… oh, yes… yes… see, you haven’t forgotten how to make a girl happy… oh… ohh… in such a… mmmm… lost my place… where was I… oh, yes… oh, yes… oyez…”
“Did you just say oyez?”
“Oh, yes.”
CHAPTER 26
Ifelt good about that,” Dexter said to Bussie Scrump and a half-dozen campaign operatives aboard the Freedom Express, the Mitchell campaign’s official bus, on its way from Memphis to Little Rock.
“You should. You were great. But this is an unusual situation. Attacking a guy who who just stands there going, Fine, don’t vote for me. You were good on defense, good on energy. On the Colombian situation, if it comes up again, and it will, maybe not do send-in-the-Nimitz. It felt a little flat. On border mining, I’m a little nervous about it. Maybe ease back on the throttle there.”
Dexter shook his head. “No, no, no. No. The nums, Buss, the nums. Eighty percent. The vast majorities of the people in the border states want mines on the border. The federal government has failed them. A government that can’t do borders? The people are frustrated. They’re angry. They want to hear boom-boom! They want to see wetbacks flying into the air. Is it a perfect solution? No. Is democracy messy? Sure. But it’s time to end the highfalutin philosophical discussions and come down off the Acropolis and get real. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. Tot it up. Ninety electoral votes. Out of the two-seventy needed to win. Who am I to say to the good, hardworking, decent-legal-residents of these states, ‘Uh-uh. Forget it. You’re just going to have to live with millions of foreigners swarming across the border, tromping across your lawns, crapping in the flower beds, having babies in your hospitals, sending their kids to your schools for free English lessons, smashing into your car without insurance.’ Oh, fuck it. Border-mining is never going to happen, so where’s the harm in being for it? It’s a freebie.”