“Oh, yeah!” Zeke muttered under his breath. He looked hard at the little shack on the edge of the excavation, festooned with signs warning of danger and high explosives. “Nothing like advertising,” he said aloud, laughing.
When he got back to his rooming house later in the day, his landlady called to him as he passed her living room.
“Mr. Grant?”
“Yes, Mrs. Rivera.”
She fumbled for a piece of paper in her pocket. “A Mr. Hiller called. He said to tell you everything is okay, and you can start work tomorrow, instead of the day after.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
“It’s okay if I call you Harry?” she asked.
“Sure, it is,” he said.
“My name is Rosa,” she said. “Maybe you would like to have supper with me this evening? You like Mexican?”
“Sure do, Rosa.” He grinned, looking her up and down. “I like Mexican real good. But, ah, where’s Mr. Rivera?”
“In Mexico, I think, but who cares?”
“Not me,” he said, giving her his best smile.
37
As his campaign airplane approached Los Angeles, Will picked up the telephone, the only item on the aircraft that he felt worked consistently well, and called Kate at home.
“Hello?” she said.
“Good evening; this is the next president of the United States.”
“Oh, God, not another dirty phone call.”
“Show a little respect, Missy, or when I’m president, I’ll exile you to the Department of Agriculture.”
“Could you breathe a little harder, please? I don’t feel I’m getting the full effect.”
“I promise you the full effect just as soon as you arrive in L.A.”
“Oh, well, there’s a problem; I can’t come tomorrow.”
“What?”
“A flap at the office. I can’t go into it, but...”
“Kate, I need you here.”
“Will, I’m sorry, but...”
“Kate, I haven’t asked much of you during the campaign, but this is important. The delegates are arriving, and I want them to see you with me on television. Peter, too.”
“So, you want to use my son for window dressing?”
“You bet I do, and you as well. And ANYWAY, I thought it might be a memorable experience for Peter to be at the Democratic convention and see his stepfather nominated for the presidency.”
“Wait a minute, do you know something I don’t?”
“Just take it for granted.”
“Will, I’ll just be a day late, that’s all. You know I wouldn’t be late if it weren’t important.”
“The fund-raiser is the day after tomorrow,” Will said. “You can’t miss that.”
“Oh, is this the one where I get to shake the hand of Charlene Joiner and thank her for screwing you?”
“That’s the one, and short of thanking her, you have to be nice. The press is primed for this event, and it must go well. Look on the bright side; you get to spend some time with Vance Calder, too. You met him in New York, remember?”
“I believe I may have a vague recollection of having met the biggest movie star in Hollywood and the handsomest man on earth, yes. I’ll make you a deal; you spend all your time with Charlene, and I’ll spend all my time with Vance.”
“You want me to spend all my time with Charlene?”
“Well, no, but I figure you won’t be able to, anyway, whereas I can cling to Vance like a mussel, and everybody will think it’s charming.”
“We’ve got the biggest suite at the Bel Air Hotel, so we can put Peter down a hall somewhere, so he won’t hear his mother’s pitiful cries.”
“That’s good geography. Can we put Charlene in Mexico?”
“Probably not; she is, after all, our hostess.”
“I hear there’s a market for her services in Tijuana.”
Will felt a need to change the subject. “The Secret Service will meet you at LAX, and you’ll get VIP treatment all the way.”
“You mean I won’t have to wait for my luggage and a rent-a-car?”
“You’ll go straight from the airplane into a limo, and from there, straight into my bed.”
“Will the Secret Service help with that, too?”
“We won’t need any help.”
“How many events do I have to go to while I’m there?”
“One thousand and sixty, at last count.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Some of them might actually be fun,” Will said. “The rest, you’ll have to pretend.”
“And I’m so good at pretending.”
“You’ll manage; it won’t be any duller than a CIA old boys’ reunion.”
“It wouldn’t be any duller than that if you were running for head of the Los Angeles sewer department.”
“Speaking of the old boys, do they ever mention the campaign and your place in it?”
At first they did, in sly sorts of ways. I think they finally got over it.”
“They’re not worried what life would be like if the first lady were working at the Agency?”
If they are, they’re too clever to let me know it. Come to think of it, maybe I should start dropping hints that they’d better be nice to me.”
“Wait until I have the nomination, then let ’em have it.”
“Where, exactly, are you now?”
Will looked out the window. “We’re flying over the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles, which go on forever and ever.”
“Are you landing at LAX?”
No, at Santa Monica. The airplane can just about get in there, and Kitty thinks it’ll be easier to manage the press there than at LAX.”
“What do you mean, ‘the airplane can just about get in there’? How long is the runway?”
“Shorter than LAX’s, I think, but long enough.”
“Will you be on TV when you land?”
“If I’m not, I’m firing Kitty.”
“Then I can watch. Oh, boy! Will you try and say something new and different?”
“I try to do that every day, but it doesn’t always work. I have to settle for what’s new and different to the particular audience.”
“Send me a signal,” she said. “If you love me, scratch your crotch.”
Will burst out laughing. “On national television?”
Never mind. Charlene would probably think it was a signal to her.”
“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow,” Will said, still laughing.
“Count on it, my love.”
“I love you.”
“You better.”
38
As the 737 landed, Will looked across a taxiway into a boiling crowd at the Supermarine terminal. “Oh, look,” he said to Kitty Conway, as they raced past, engines in full reverse, “a spontaneous demonstration.”
“Yeah,” Kitty replied, “and it only took three weeks to put together.”
A Secret Service agent sitting across the aisle from Will briefed him as they taxied back toward Supermarine. “This is the biggest crowd we’ve managed yet, and I want you to know the setup,” he said. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and displayed a diagram of the area. “We had Supermarine pull all aircraft off their ramp to make room for the crowd. A podium and sound system have been set up, where the airplane will stop, and this area to your left will be press only, except for cameramen, who will be scattered all over the place. If you feel a sudden urge to plunge into the crowd, remember this: The first rows of people, three or four deep, are our buffer zone. All the people there are campaign workers or invited guests; we’ve run the name, date of birth, and social security number of every one of them through our computers to make sure that none of them has a criminal record or has ever made a threat on a president or a politician.
“Behind them is the general public, and if you push that far into the crowd, it will be almost impossible for us to protect you. That’s how we lost George Wallace; he pushed past the buffer zone, Arthur Bremmer was waiting for him with a handgun, and Wallace spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.”