Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

“Wait a minute. Tell me the name of the girl who took the photo.”

“Darlene Cole,” Teddy said without hesitation.

“Son of a bitch, you are Teddy Fay.”

“Shhhh,” Teddy said. “Finish your wine-we can’t talk here.”

Ned tossed back his drink and ordered the check. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, pitching some money onto the table.

A couple of minutes later they were walking down a path high above the canal that was lit by streetlamps, two of which were dark, because Teddy had thrown rocks at them before Ned had arrived. “Okay,” Teddy said, stopping and leaning on the steel rail between the path and the canal, “let’s talk turkey. If you’re giving Darlene ten grand, I want fifty grand for the interview.”

“Look,” Ned said, “I’ve only got twenty-five thousand with me, but I’ll send you the other half, I swear.”

Teddy regarded him for a moment. “I believe you,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“God, I don’t know where to start,” Ned said.

“That’s because you’re drunk,” Teddy replied. “Take a few deep breaths.” He watched as another big tanker approached where they stood.

Ned began taking deep breaths.

“Oxygen, that’s what you need,” Teddy said.

Ned stopped taking the big breaths. “Jesus, I’m dizzy. I think I’m going to throw up.”

Teddy took him by the shoulders and spun him around. “Over the rail,” he said.

Ned leaned over the rail and vomited.

Teddy had a quick look around: nobody on the path, nobody on the foredeck of the tanker. He drew back, and, as Ned straightened up, Teddy struck him hard in the back of the neck with the edge of his hand. Ned collapsed onto the rail, and Teddy helped him over and watched him as he fell, struck his head on a crane on the foredeck, bounced off some pipes, then fell between them.

Teddy ambled away. Ned wouldn’t be found before morning, if then, and by that time the ship would be at sea, and nobody would know when Ned Partain joined the cruise.

Then he remembered the photograph; it was still in Ned’s pocket. And the negative was probably in the editorial offices of the National Inquisitor. Either that, or his old girlfriend Darlene, if she was smart, still had it.

Teddy unlocked his scooter from the rail outside the restaurant, started it, and headed back to Panama City.

He had a lot to think about.

Will sat on Air Force One and watched a tape of his opponent’s first campaign speech. The man looked good: He had gray-streaked blond hair and wore a well-cut suit that complemented his tan, but there was nothing new in the speech. He turned to Moss Mallet, Tom Black, and Kitty Conroy.

“It’s the same old speech,” Will said. “I’m liberal, liberal, liberal, and he’s more conservative than John Birch, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan put together.”

“You’re right,” Moss replied, “but believe it or not, this speech did him a lot of good. For the first time, he’s attacking you instead of his two opponents, and the guy looks great, you have to admit.”

“I don’t want to date him,” Will replied. “I want to kick his ass in the election. How do we do that?”

“We’ll attack his voting record, which is direly conservative,” Tom said.

“Is that going to help us with independents and slightly liberal Republicans?”

“Sure it is,” Tom replied. “In a lot of ways he’s what they don’t like about the Republican Party.”

“Except,” Moss said, “the electorate has always been partial to good-looking blond guys, like Jack Kemp and Dan Quayle.”

“Kemp never got the nomination, and Quayle ended up as the poster boy for dumbness,” Will pointed out.

“Yeah, but Quayle got elected, and more important, he didn’t keep the first Bush from winning.”

“So are we going to mount a campaign against Spanner’s being pretty?”

“We won’t have to do that,” Moss said. “Every time he makes some sort of bone-headed remark, they’ll remember Dan Quayle.”

Will sat back in his chair. “Didn’t Quayle have something like a three handicap?”

“Something like that,” Tom replied.

“Do you have any idea how much practice it takes to have a three handicap?”

“A lot,” Tom agreed.

“But he found time for it while he was in the Senate. Find out what Spanner’s handicap his. God, I hope he’s a scratch golfer. We could really make something of that.”

“Who would that matter to?” Kitty asked.

“To everybody who doesn’t play golf, or who plays but doesn’t have time to practice to a low handicap,” Tom replied. “Plus everybody who doesn’t play golf and hates people who do. We could do a commercial with some guy who has a low handicap and ask him how much time he practices to stay so good. He’d say something like, ‘Oh, at least four hours a day,’ and I think people would get the idea.”

“I like it,” Will said. “I had a sixteen handicap before I was a Senate aide, and I had to play at least four times a week to keep that.”

Kitty was banging away on her laptop. “Here we go,” she said. “Bill Spanner is a member at Congressional and Burning Tree. His handicap is listed as nineteen.”

“Never mind,” Will said.

Martin Stanton was on television in Los Angeles with a room full of high school students, answering their questions.

A skinny kid stood up and said, “I’m confused. Last week you were governor. How’d you get to be vice president?”

Marty bestowed a smile upon the boy. “The Constitution says that if a vice president dies in office, the president appoints his replacement, with the approval of the Senate, so when Vice President George Kiel died, President Lee appointed me to the remainder of Mr. Kiel’s term. That term expires next January, unless President Lee and I are reelected.”

The boy sat down, and a Hispanic girl stood up and asked a question about the Democratic health care plan that was so sophisticated that Stanton was barely able to answer it. He was impressed.

Another girl stood up. “Mr. Vice President, how is it that, with a name like Stanton, you are supposed to be Hispanic?”

Stanton smiled again, relieved to receive a softer pitch. “Because my mother is Hispanic. She’s a native of Mexico, and I spent a lot of time there as a child. My father was a soft-drink bottler in Tijuana. I’m proud to be thought of as Hispanic.”

Will finished speaking in Chicago and was driven in a motorcade back to the airplane. It always embarrassed him to drive down an empty street and see people stopped at every corner to let him pass.

Back on the airplane he got Kitty and the head of his Secret Service detail together. “I’ve told you both about this before,” he said, “but nothing has changed. I’m still stopping traffic for miles around when I’m driven anywhere, and I want something done about it.”

“Mr. President,” the agent said, “we’re doing the minimum we have to to ensure your safety.”

“The minimum is an armored limousine, four Secret Service cars, half a dozen local police cars, and a platoon of motorcycle police?”

“The local cops want to participate in the motorcade, sir, and to tell the truth, I’m glad to have them clearing the way.”

Kitty spoke up. “He’s right, Mr. President. If we cut down the security and you were harmed it would be a stain on the Secret Service for decades.”

“All that security didn’t help Jack Kennedy,” Will said, “and it didn’t even help George Wallace.”

“A lone gunman in a high place is always a problem, Mr. President,” the agent said, “and the motorcade was traveling slowly, so that the crowds could get a good look at President and Mrs. Kennedy. Lee Oswald got a good look, too. That’s why we have to keep up the speed of the motorcade. George Wallace was shot because he didn’t follow the plan.”