Warren Murphy: Dark Horse

He had planned to ask Chiun not to kill him.

Chapter 28

It was called the Conference on Multiculturalism.

It was supposed to be called the California Gubernatorial Debate, but the Barry Black camp had insisted on the new name so that Enrique Espiritu Esperanza couldn't claim the multicultural high ground for himself.

"Done," said Harmon Cashman, through a mouthful of chocolate wafer. "This is easier than I thought!" he chortled, after hanging up on the Black campaign.

Rona Ripper's demand was much simpler.

"My candidate insists that this be a standing debate," said her campaign director.

"You got it," Harmon told the man, who had mysteriously taken the place of the former campaign director, Blaise Perrin. The press was still trying to figure out what had happened to him. He'd simply dropped out of sight, along with Cheeta Ching. Not that anyone missed her.

Harmon took the good news to Enrique Esperanza.

"Both camps have agreed," he said. "Black's people are going to jump on the multicultural bandwagon."

"This is fine. Multiculturalism should not belong to one man."

"And Ripper's people say we gotta stand, because Rona's rear end hasn't healed yet."

Esperanza shook his head. "The poor woman."

"Any demands you want to make before we finalize this?"

"Yes, I wish that Miss Ripper stand between Mr. Black and myself."

"Why?"

Enrique Esperanza shrugged. "It is merely whim. They have demands, so I must make one. We do not wish to show weakness at this late stage."

"I'll run it past the others. But I'm sure they'll go along. Hell, the fact that they're willing to debate you means both camps are running scared."

"My polls are good?"

Harmon grinned. "The numbers are running our way, all right."

"Good. I think this is one time the dark horse will run in the money."

And both men laughed, Enrique Esperanza through his broad grin and Harmon Cashman through a mouthful of black-and-white cookie crumbs.

On the day of the Conference on Multiculturalism, an auditorium at Stanford University-the birthplace of Multiculturalism, according to the press releases issued by all three campaigns-was packed with representatives of the press and an audience of business and civic leaders from all over the state.

An unusual precaution was a long sheet of bulletproof Plexiglas that ran the length of the stage. This was to protect the candidates from any would-be assassin.

The press complained about the reflections their camera lights created, but no one demanded it be taken down.

Bulletproof limousines brought the candidates to the debate hall. Rona Ripper arrived first, and was escorted to a waiting room behind the curtain by state troopers.

Barry Black, Junior arrived in a pastry truck. His staff carted him in concealed in a balsa-wood pyramid covered with almondine frosting, on the theory that no one would shoot a giant cake, especially one they didn't know held the candidate.

Enrique Esperanza was the last to arrive. State troopers were not needed. His entourage consisted of innercity gang members, who waved Oreo cookies at the cameras.

Remo and Chiun were forced to enter through a service door.

"This is an insult," Chiun huffed, as they slipped past the state trooper posted at the door as if he were an insensate statue, which by Sinanju standards he was.

"We are reduced to skulking, when we should be in the lemonlight, as befits our exalted station."

"Limelight," Remo hissed. "And if we show up on TV, Smith'll pull us both off the detail."

Chiun sniffed. "There will be sufficient lemonlight when I am Lord Treasurer of California," he allowed.

They worked their way unchallenged to the reception area, where the state troopers and the former gang members were making faces at one another.

"Have a cookie, Jack," one told a stone-faced trooper. "This stuff's proper."

The invitation was declined.

A trooper moved toward them, but Harmon Cashman, spotting Remo and Chiun, said, "There you are!" The trooper backed off.

"Glad to see you back on the winning team," Harmon told Remo.

"Any team we belong to automatically wins," Remo said.

In one corner, Enrique Esperanza was waving away the makeup man, saying, "I need no such artifices. I am Esperanza. "

This was reported to the press and to the other campaigns. They too decided to go on sans makeup.

"Are you sure this is wise, Ricky?" Harmon asked doubtfully.

"I am sure of it."

And so was Harmon Cashman, when the three candidates stepped out from behind the curtain.

"They look awful!" he said gleefully, watching a direct feed on a backstage monitor. "Ricky looks perfect, but the other two look like a bobcat's dragged them in through the back door. The debate's practically won!"

"Don't count your chickens," warned Remo.

But Harmon Cashman wasn't listening. His nose was practically pressed to the video screen as he munched away on a foot-tall stack of Oreo Big Stuf cookies.

"That guy's headed for diabetic shock," Remo said to Chiun, as they went to another monitor to watch.

"You Americans would eat rubber, if it were sweet," Chiun sniffed.

The debate began with a short statement on multiculturalism from each candidate.

Rona Ripper promised that, if elected, she would not only outlaw smoking throughout California, but work diligently to prevent the tobacco companies from exporting their products to less sophisticated third-world markets.

"I will also propose a fifty-percent tax on tobacco products, and repeal the snack tax," she added. "If people can't kick the nicotine monkey on their own, we'll tax it off their backs!"

She was applauded.

Barry Black, Junior pointed out the hitherto-unnoticed fact that most of the actors playing aliens on Star Trek: The Next Generation were people of color. Especially the ones playing Klingons.

"Those of you who watched the original program know that it wasn't like this back in the wonderful sixties," he said with righteous indignation. "I say to you that this is racism, pure and simple. If elected, I will propose emergency legislation to integrate the imaginary Klingon planet once and for all."

This too was applauded.

Then Enrique Espiritu Esperanza took his turn. He was in his habitual white suit, which made him look like a pious adult celebrating his First Communion.

"I represent hope," he said. "Hope for all people. I am a brown man. A brown man running for a white office. All over the world, offices such as I aspire to are held by white men. Even in the countries to the south of us. You need only look at them. The President of Mexico, leader of a nation of brown men. Yet he is quite white. A blanco. In Paraguay, in Chile, it is the same. Why is it that only white men can hold office? I look to a new day, a day in which a brown man can lead a white people. A brown man who stands for white people, as well as brown. I am that man."

The crowd, some five hundred people, took in his words, their eyes rapt, their mouths busy. They had been given minipacks of Oreo cookies as they walked in the door.

"I am that man," Enrique Espiritu Esperanza repeated.

Seated at his monitor, Harmon Cashman had begun to weep bitter tears.

"He blew it! The stupid spick blew it! Now it's a racial campaign!"

And then the crowd began to chant.

"Esperanza! Esperanza! Esperanza!"

Harmon Cashman could not believe it. His candidate was up there committing political suicide, and the crowd was cheering him on, white, black, brown, and yellow alike.

Somehow, some way, they saw his message of hope as relating to them all, regardless of skin color.

"This is incredible," he muttered.

In homes, in bars, in offices all over the state, the reaction was not as unanimous.