Ken looked over at Guy Vandergot before continuing.
"Okay, here's the Democratic field now that Paul's gone. All these guys have announced, and in a week or so, all of 'em are gonna be in Iowa cornfields, sitting on Jap tractors, talking about farm subsidies like they actually give a shit… So we gotta get in this now if we're gonna," Ken said, still pointing with his knife. "Your front-runner is gonna be Leo Skatina, the second-term U. S. senator from New York. He's got name identification, good local organizations, and the media likes him. He's the early poll leader. He's been real vocal about women's issues. I think the Democratic National Committee is getting set to endorse him. The DNC probably thinks he has the strength to win against Vice President Pudge Anderson, who we all know is gonna be the Republican candidate. Then you got the Democratic senator from Florida, Peter Dehaviland. Environmentalist, that's his beachhead issue-offshore drilling, air pollution, nuclear waste. He also has a strong stand against unrestricted immigration… He's gonna fade unless he gets really lucky in Iowa and New Hampshire. Malcom agrees."
"Go on." Mickey took out a notepad and began making notes.
"Okay… Eric Gulliford, nickname Gilligan 'cause he kinda looks like Bob Denver. He's an old-time Democrat. Hubert Humphrey in a fishing hat. U. S. congressman from Ohio. He's for all the traditional Democratic Party stuff: labor, welfare, jobs for everyone, government spending. Tax the shit out of everybody. He's strong with the old party hacks. Could only be trouble if, for some reason, the party shifts off Skatina. And then the last announced candidate is Benjamin Savage. He's a New Age liberal from California, a three-term U. S. senator and he's got all the hot-button Melrose Avenue issues western liberals love-recast the workplace to fit society, tough sex harassment laws, animal rights, gay rights, women's rights, health care for everyone, legalized drugs…"
Mickey winced slightly, but they didn't see it.
Ken set down his knife pointer and leaned back. 'That's the field," he concluded. "These guys couldn't agree on due north if they were each holding a compass. Malcolm thinks we should try and lump them all as insiders and run against the whole lot like they were one candidate. Tar them with the same brush. That means we should try and find a candidate that has never held a national office, somebody who's never bounced a check on the congressional bank or cast a midnight vote for a pay raise. Rhode Island governor Haze Richards is our choice. He has no legislative record to attack that would mean anything to anybody. He's photogenic. Show him the picture."
Van opened his briefcase and slid out a glossy print. Mickey was looking at a very handsome man in his mid-fifties who could have been in a Ralph Lauren ad-closecropped gray hair, square jaw, blue eyes.
"He's a second-term governor, and all we need is to find a guy who can steer him for us so he does what we say: The choice of that person, Mickey knew, was critical. It was a problem that had led to the meeting in Joseph's bedroom two days later, and now it seemed to be a man named A. J. Teagarden.
Mickey looked at his father, who was losing energy… His eyes were still fierce and bright, but his head was sagging on his weak neck and his cough was appalling.
"Mickey, you go up there tomorrow, let's see if we can get to this governor you found."
Chapter 6.
The slots were ringing and croupiers were keeping up a steady drone, making the place seem more interesting than it was.
Toozday Rohmer had started as a tall, seventeen-year-old blond dancer at the Stardust, but she'd had a fling with a pit boss who'd gotten her initiated into drugs and then into the sisterhood of the towel. It was just a short cab ride from high-roller hooking to fifty-dollar grudge fucks in seedy hotel rooms. While Solomon Kazorowski was still running the Organized Crime Bureau Strike Force in Vegas, he had trained her as an informant inside the hotel. She'd never been able to give Kaz the big bust he'd wanted but they'd become friends over the years. At Christmas he always gave her a magnum of Dom Perignon. "Real class," she'd tell him.
There was something tragic about the Tooz, and Kaz couldn't bring himself to lean on her hard.
She had been born poor in one of those farm states that begin with a vowel. She soon became a victim of her own great legs, jutting breasts, and lack of curiosity. At age forty, she was still flatbacking and watching cartoons on days off.
She and Kaz had gotten drunk together one night, ten years ago. In what seemed like an obligatory salute to their sexuality, they had made listless love on the sofa in Kaz's apartment while his marmalade cat, J. Edgar, looked on.
It had been a mistake, so they'd never done it again and had agreed to be just friends… and they still were, even though Kaz had been dumped out of the FBI nine years ago for too actively pursuing Alo family ties to Governor Arquette and the casinos.
The way it had happened was almost impossible for him to believe. He had taken his mother to the flamingo Hotel for dinner and the head waiter sent over a bottle of complimentary champagne and some caviar to commemorate the occasion. Kaz, who had never accepted a dime from organized crime, somehow had a lapse of reason and accepted the bottle and the tin of caviar. Maybe because it made him look good to his mother and he was showing off, letting her see what an important guy he was. Whatever caused the lapse, the underworld had hung the fivehundred-dollar tab around his neck like a dead fish. The Las Vegas press danced on his forehead. They ran a six-part story and sank his career in that magnum of champagne. All his life, Kaz had wanted to be a fed-to stand tall in a company of men fighting for justice. He knew it was corny but he believed in the mission. The Alo family had orchestrated the end of his career, had convinced Governor Paul Arquette to put the heat on with his superiors. He'd been forced to go "stress-related" and put his papers in early to save half his pension. His life had been stripped from him. After all these years, Kaz still harbored a seething resentment. Even though he was benched by the "Eye," his heart still pumped Bureau-blue. He was still looking for an opening, and was still dangerous.
"Fucking stage manager is always trying to cop a feel and this guy looks like he was bred in a mayonnaise jar," Tooz was saying. "I swear this place is a dump, the costumes don't fit. My G is climbing up my ass and I gott a w ear Clorinda's extra shoes. She's two sizes smaller." Tooz was looking at Kaz, filling time with her bitching, thinking he looked old. He still wore the horrible Hawaiian shirts, but he'd gained weight and looked ten years older than his fifty-four years. Liver spots dotted his beefy hands. Getting busted out of the Frisbees had really taken a toll.
"Well, Tooz, whatta you gonna do?"
"Yeah," she nodded sourly. "You doing okay? I heard the Licensing Board turned you down again."
Kaz had been trying to get a private detective's license so he could get some of the growing divorce work that was hitting the town. Plus there were half a dozen runaways a month that had good repos on them. Most of them were teenage strawberries on the strip: Because of the enemies he'd made while he was busting mobsters in the casino counting moms, they blocked him four times.
"Gonna have to get a job selling used cars pretty soon," he said.
"Listen, reason I called is I got something sorta strange the other day."
"What's that?"
"Well, there's a girl I dance with, Cindy Medina. Her sister works in the Coroner's Office and there's a rumor down there that when they did the autopsy blood screen on Senator Arquette, it showed he was HIV positive."
Kaz looked at her, his mind going back ten years. He always suspected Arquette was a shill for the Alos. He had gone in and swept the governor's suite in the Sands after he'd checked out, hoping to find something. He hadn't gotten anything to confirm his suspicions, but he had found a man's bikini wadded up and stuffed in the Jacuzzi drain. It had a hotel gift shop label. He'd gone down there and found out it had been put on Paul Arquette's bill by somebody he didn't know named Warren Sacks. Warren turned out to be Paul's media consultant. Warren and Paul had died together last week in the Bahamas. Kaz had his suspicion that something was going on between Warren and Paul, but nobody had anything to prove Paul was bisexual so they'd let it drop. Maybe, just for the hell of it, he ought to see what he could find out. God knows, he had plenty of time and he still had one or two friends in the Coroner's Office.