Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

“Good morning,” he said to the knot of press, White House staffers, and dignitaries gathered there. “It gives me great pleasure to announce that I am appointing Governor Martin Stanton of California to the office of Vice President of the United States of America. You may have heard that I had already selected Governor Stanton as my running mate last week”-he paused for scattered laughter-“and since the office has become vacant, I didn’t think it was necessary to keep him waiting.” More laughter. “I regret only that Mrs. Stanton is unwell in California and unable to be here today, but I’m sure she is watching us on television. The customary FBI background check has been completed, and the director has informed me that there are no grounds on which to arrest the governor, so there was no reason for delay. As you know, the Constitution requires that the appointment of a vice president must be ratified by the Senate, and the leadership has informed me that the confirmation hearing will be held the day after tomorrow. Governor, would you like to say a few words?”

Stanton stepped forward to a round of polite applause. “Thank you, Mr. President. I am deeply honored by this appointment, and I am grateful to you for this opportunity. I know that Vice President Kiel’s shoes are large and will be difficult to fill, but I will do my best to fulfill the requirements of the office and the hopes of the American people.”

That evening, Felix and Marlene sat before their big-screen flat-panel television set sharing a pizza and watching the little ceremony on CNN.

Felix took a swig of his beer and belched. “Y’know,” he said, “that guy sounds like the guy on the tape.”

“Which guy? Oh, that guy?”

“That guy. He has that deep voice, y’know?”

“Felix, how many beers have you had?” Marlene asked.

“Not that many,” Felix replied, defensively.

“That guy is going to be the vice president,” she said.

“Yeah, I figured that out. I’m just telling you, he sounds like the guy on the tape.”

“So, if that’s true, this Stanton guy has a girlfriend stashed somewhere?”

“Sounds like it.”

“So, how do we prove that his voice is the one on the tape?” Felix scratched his head. “I could record that speech he just made off the TiVo and compare the two voices.”

“Compare them how?”

“Well, you know, there are ways you can compare two recordings electronically.”

“I know that the National Security Agency can do that,” Marlene said, “but I don’t know that you can do it.”

“I know a guy that might have the equipment to do it,” Felix said.

“Hang on just a minute,” Marlene said.

“Okay, I’m hanging.”

“We need to look at what we’re getting into here. What you usually do with the recordings you make is get a leg up on the story, get there first.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m doing here.”

“Felix, this is different. If you sell this story to somebody based on these tapes, you’re going to have to give them the tapes, and even if the two voices are the same, those tapes have a lot of gaps in them. The Feds would find out where the tapes came from, and they would be all over you. You really want to go through that for a few grand, which is what you’re going to get for the tapes?”

“All that, just because I taped a guy and his girlfriend on the phone?”

“You taped him at the White House.”

“Well, I don’t know that. He could have been sitting on a park bench in the neighborhood, you know?”

“It’s still illegal to tape somebody on a cell phone, and if you sell the story, you’ll have to admit that’s what you did. Also, if all of this stuff was somehow confirmed and became believable, you’d be blowing a vice president out of the water. Hellfire would rain down on you, if you did that.”

“Just because he’s fucking somebody?”

“You just heard them say he’s married. Remember what happened to Gary Hart?”

“Who?”

Marlene sighed. “He was a guy running for president who got caught with a girl on the side-then he wasn’t running for president anymore. And he invited the press to follow him around. Stanton has not issued you an invitation to record his personal telephone calls. Do you want him to get blown out of the water?”

“What the fuck do I care-I don’t even know him.”

“My very point.”

“Look, all these guys are crooks. Why would you care what happened to him?”

“Well, putting aside simple human decency for a moment, I care what happens to you. Are you willing to trade the possibility of prison time and your face all over the news for the few grand you’d get for the tape?”

“I might like being famous,” Felix said.

“There’s famous good, and there’s famous bad. Nobody would ever buy a story from you again.”

“They might. The publicity might even improve my business.”

“You can’t operate your business, if that’s what you want to call what you do, from a jail cell, and when you get out, you’ll be Felix the ex-con that nobody wants to know, let alone buy dirt from.”

“I think you’re overreacting, Marlene.”

“I’m just trying to be real, here.”

“Well, how about this: I get this guy I know who has the equipment to compare the tape with a recording of what we just saw?” He began rewinding the TiVo.

“If you give this guy the two tapes, what’s to keep him from selling the story himself?”

“He’s a good guy-he wouldn’t do that.”

“Felix, there’s a real scarcity of good guys where money is concerned, especially money made this way.”

“Well, I’m just going to look into it, that’s all. I’ll talk to you about it before I do anything.”

Marlene opened another beer and went back to her pizza. She didn’t speak to him again that evening.

Will sat in his office aboard Air Force One, dictating responses to correspondence into a recording machine. The letters would be typed and ready to mail by the time the big Boeing arrived in Los Angeles. His phone buzzed.

Will picked it up. “Yes?”

“Moss Mallet would like to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Moss, his pollster, rapped on the door and opened it. “Okay, Mr. President?”

“Come on in, Moss,” Will said, and pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”

Moss took a deep breath. “My office has just faxed me the raw data on our first poll since the convention. I haven’t finished all the analysis yet, but I thought you should know what the raw data are before you speak in L.A.”

“Shoot,” Will said.

“The appointment of Governor Stanton as your running mate, bumped you up a point in the poll, but-and this is weird-your appointment of him as veep knocked you down a point.”

“I don’t get it,” Will said. “People want him as my running mate but not as vice president?”

“The one-point bump seems to have come from Democrats, who like the appointment by seventy percent or so. Eight percent didn’t like it, and the rest are undecided. The one-point drop seems to have come from independents, mostly.”

“So the net result is flat, no change?”

“That’s right.”

“I thought we’d get a six- or seven-point bump in the polls, based on Marty’s popularity in California.”

“We did get that in California but not nationally.”

Will shrugged. “Okay, the rest of the country will like him better as they get to know him, see him on more Sunday morning shows and in campaign appearances.”

“He’s doing Meet the Press this Sunday,” Moss said. “I hope you’re right.” He shuffled some papers. “But there’s something else.”