Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“You won’t be lying. You’ll talk about how good it is to be reunited with your son and that you’ll go into detail at a later date. If anybody brings up the fact that the police questioned him, just say that they’ve been questioning a lot of people, which they no doubt have.” I didn’t tell her about the great grand dream I’d had of her, Bobby, and sweet pregnant Gwen all together in front of the cameras. We were past that now; all we could do was get on the air as soon as possible and start controlling the message as best we could. No long-lost sons or winsome daughters-in-law for props.

“I’ll run, that’ll help. It always relaxes me.”

“Run, shower, get dressed, and then spend some time with Ben and Kristin at the office. They’ll know what to do. You’ll be nervous when you see the reporters, but once you start talking you’ll be fine. It’s what you said awhile ago, how this should be a happy time for you. That’s all you need to convey. The happy time. The family together again. Make a few jokes about being a grandmother at your age.”

“You have a lot of faith in me. I hope I can do it.” She sat back and looked at me. “The terrible thing is that I want to get reelected. All these other awful things going on all around me and I’m still thinking about my job.”

“You’re a good congresswoman. You enjoy your work and you’re actually helping people. Nothing wrong with that.”

A bittersweet smile. “Poor Natalie. She’ll probably have to be sedated by the time this is all over.”

“That’s a nice thought,” I said. “Natalie Cooper — sedated.”

As I slid out of the booth, I said, “I’ll check in with Ben in an hour or two.”

She held out her hand. I took it. Ice cold. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to be sedated, Dev.”

Peter Cooper didn’t like me because I’d rejected his speeches. I didn’t expect a warm welcome and I didn’t get one.

Mandy Gilmore, his secretary, had accompanied Peter on a visit to my office a few months ago. She hadn’t liked me much that time, and now that I’d declined to use his speeches she liked me even less. She was on her headset when I opened the door. She was also riffling through some papers. She started to look up, the automatic smile already in place. When she recognized me she flipped the friendly greeting switch off instantly. She pointed to one of the green leatherette-covered chairs beneath the map of Susan’s district.

I went over and sat down and tried not to listen to her. She turned away and muttered something that contained one word I understood: “Asshole.” I was pretty sure who she was referring to.

After she hung up she gave me a sharp look and said, “I know you don’t believe in appointments, but that’s how we do things around here.”

Today she wore a frothy amber blouse and a dark skirt. She would have been attractive if she’d ever let go of her anger. But she’d found a way to channel all the sorrows of her life into her gatekeeper job, and the sullenness was taking its toll.

“I know he’s here. I saw his car. I need to talk to him now. If you won’t tell him I’m here, then I’ll walk over to his door and tell him myself.”

“You’re a real bastard, you know that? Do any of you people know how hard he works? But Natalie and Susan and everybody else treat him like shit. Just like shit. No respect at all for his schedule. Do this, do that, and no warning whatsoever.”

“So which’ll it be, Mandy? I’m not trying to be an asshole here.”

“But you’re succeeding, so—”

“So I really need to see him and right now.”

She jammed a finger against a button. Peter’s disembodied voice said, “Yes?”

“Mr. Conrad is here.” She made my name a thing that dripped with revulsion.

“Well, uh, bring him in.” But he sounded doubtful. He was obviously recalling our last meeting.

I’d never encountered this before, a district office that disliked — hell, despised — the congresswoman it represented. Apparently Peter and Mandy did their jobs well, tending to the various constituent services that the voters needed. And with an economy sinking lower every day, they had to be busier than ever. I wondered if they secretly drew mustaches on Susan’s photographs after they closed up shop for the day.

“You can go in.”

“Thank you, Mandy.”

Her face wrinkled. She turned away. As I walked toward Peter’s office, I saw the room where constituents filled out forms for help. The table sat twelve, six per side. All the seats were taken and half a dozen more people were standing around a coffeepot waiting for their turn to sit down. There would be a lot of heartbreak in that room.

Peter wore a gray suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie. With his sleek dark hair and bland smile he looked like every successful male senatorial staffer in Washington, D.C.

“I’ll bet you’re having a busy day,” he said. He couldn’t quite keep the sound of pleasure from his tone. He might be witnessing the downfall of his stepsister.

“Yep.” I closed the door and walked over to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Photographs of major state pols from a generation ago, the men who would have helped him fulfill his dreams if only he’d had the guts and savvy to help himself. In the wide window behind him a 747 was just getting speed, elegant against the flat perfect blue of the sky.

“I’ll do all I can.”

“I’ll bet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I’d been thinking about the newspaper story and all the inside information the reporter had gotten from somebody close to the campaign. What about a stepbrother who was jealous of his stepsister? “Somebody talked to that reporter. Somebody who knows the campaign. Otherwise that story would never have been written.”

He’d been slouching. Now he sat up straight. He had Natalie’s eyes. He could never match her scorn. He merely looked petulant.

He gritted his teeth and sighed. “Did Susan and Ben send you here to accuse me? They can shove this up their ass. I really resent this. I can’t believe that my mother sanctioned this — you coming here.”

“Things have moved way beyond what your mother sanctioned or didn’t sanction, Peter.”

“This is total bullshit.”

But everything — the body language, the anxiety in the gaze, the too-loud voice — told me he was lying.

I gave him my best lizard smile. “I talked to the reporter, Peter. I also offered him five hundred dollars to tell me who’d ratted out the campaign. He told me it was you.” Lies can come in damned handy sometimes. He went back into his slump. He sulked. He waved a hand to dismiss me.

“I don’t have to talk to you. I don’t have to talk to anybody.”

“Mommy’s not going to be very happy when I tell her what you did. She’s put an awful lot of money into this campaign,” I said.

“You just get the hell out of here and don’t ever come back.”

“Mandy’s going to stop me, is she? Between Mandy and Mommy, you’re pretty well protected, aren’t you, son?”

At the door I said, “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”

Fortunately for both of us, Mandy wasn’t in the reception area when I left.

The press conference started promptly at three-twenty. Eighteen reporters filed into campaign headquarters and assembled in front of a rostrum we’d brought in. A good share of the office space used by the volunteers had been cleared to make more room for the press and a table had been set up with coffee and cookies. Staffers stood at the back, looking as if they’d been invaded and were just waiting for the jackboots to come back and kill them.