The Candidate (10 page)

* * *

MIKE WAS eager to hit the ground running. This was new territory. Iowa was behind them and the battle of New Hampshire lay ahead. The car sped north out of Manchester and headed for the city of Berlin in the upper reaches of the state. It was an old logging town fallen on hard times; very different from the richer suburbs in the south of the state. That made it the perfect place for Hodges to kick off his campaign. He spoke for the voiceless and the ignored. He took the road less traveled. The student chattered excitedly as he drove and the icy, mountainous, forested landscape slipped by.

“Hardly any candidate ever comes up to Berlin,” he was saying. “I can’t believe the Senator is going to spend time up there. It’s amazing.”

Mike allowed the student to talk on and grunted every so often to keep him going. Outside he watched as the countryside slipped by. It was so different from Iowa’s vast horizons and broad fields and tiny towns. Here the landscape was more crowded, dominated by thick, dark forests out of which reared mountains. The tidy New England towns they sped through seemed packed together tightly. It was more cramped, more intense and everywhere there were election placards. New Hampshire craved for Iowa to get out of the way. It wanted its turn in the limelight.

The drive lasted three hours and eventually they cruised into downtown Berlin, nestled in a wooded valley with a fast flowing river carving through the heart of it. The hulks of shuttered sawmills loomed over the city and reminded Mike of the landscapes where he grew up. The sun set but even in the twilight it was immediately obvious where Hodges’ rally was being held. Crowds of people trudged through the streets towards the town hall. They parked the car and walked along with the crowd. Mike enjoyed feeling part of the throng of people; he was just one person being carried along. The cold air melted away in the face of the human warmth of the gathering, but it was a relief all the same to finally get inside the town hall.

Mike immediately saw the familiar faces of the staffers from Iowa who made the jump to New Hampshire. The same media too, now permanently trailing Hodges from event to event. Lauren was among them as she set up her computer at a crowded desk at the back of the room. She saw Mike and waved. He nodded in return and wondered if she noticed his election night absence — and whether she linked it to his investigating the shooter. But her smile seemed nothing but genuine and it felt good to be on the receiving end of it.

The crowd suddenly roared as Hodges entered the room and Mike felt the familiar rush of energy and anticipation. The candidate walked on stage like a man who knew he could win the state, exuding confidence. But his speech was humble and human. Each person in the room felt he asked them alone for his or her help, as he persuaded each individual that he or she really could make a difference. He took questions too, long into the night, for more than an hour and a half, as nervous aides twitched and fidgeted in the background. But Hodges never once looked at them. His focus was on the crowd, listening and debating, absorbing their concerns. At one point an old man, a logger long ago laid off who struggled against illness, stood up and spoke about a lifetime of poverty and a fight to get by that got worse with age, not better.

“I can’t afford any more hope,” he said at last with grim humor. “My heart can’t take it.”

There were a few laughs in the crowd but Hodges quieted them and walked to where the old man stood. He put the microphone down and grasped the man by the shoulder, clasping him in a hug, and whispered in his ear. Most could not hear what Hodges said. It was not a moment designed for the cameras. But the image of the two men was picked up and played back on TV. It was not a piece of political theatre. It was genuine. But what Mike saw Hodges’ mouthing to the old man was a simple vow.

“I won’t let you down,” Hodges had said, and the old man started to weep.

* * *

THE SMOKY little dive bar in Berlin looked exactly like the sort of place where a fight could break out at any moment. As such, Dee was perfectly at home. It was dark and a few groups of drinkers hung back in the corners while a couple of solitary men perched at the bar, nursing bottles of beer and chasers. That was Dee’s drink of choice too as she chalked up another win at the pool table and sent a confused local back to the bar for another drink to comfort him in his latest loss.

“Come on, you rack them up this time, Mike,” Dee said. “Local boys here can’t shoot pool for shit.”

Dee did not mind that her voice, with its Southern inflection, carried into the furthest depths of the bar. But, Mike guessed, the crowd in the bar had probably never seen anyone quite like Dee. This mannish-looking stocky middle-aged woman in blue jeans with a loud mouth and an even louder attitude. The bar crowd were the sort of guys who preferred to steer clear of such new and unusual things. Mike set up the balls.

“She’s Guatemalan, huh? Mayan?” Dee said, whistling through her teeth. “You know, I have seen a lot of strange things in this business. Thirty years or more of strange things, truth be told. But this is up there with the weirdest of them. What do you think it means?”

Mike shrugged.

“You know Hodges’ biography just like I do. We’ve always focused on his military career in the Gulf, in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. We never paid much attention to the things that happened in the 1980s. I mean he was all over Central America for some of that time, including Guatemala. He was a trainer at the School for the Americas, but it was all just routine stuff. He ran a few courses, he helped train a few colonels. I always thought it was a kind of a dull story.”

Dee broke the triangle of pool balls with a mighty crack from her cue. Two of the balls sailed into the pockets and she swiftly lined up a third.

“Shit, I don’t even know if he speaks Spanish.”

She missed the shot and then paused for a moment.

“Though it would be useful. If he’s fluent in Spanish that’s going to be a big vote winner with the Hispanics in California and Texas.”

“Are you really thinking that far ahead?”

Dee nodded.

“Hell, yes,” she said. Her voice was firm, angry even at the suggestion. “This is no game, Mike. Look around you. Look at this sorry ass bar; look at this sorry ass town. Christ, look at this sorry ass goddamn country. Hodges can change that.”

She softened slightly and put up her pool cue.

“Look, I don’t mean to be hard. But I know the kind of people in this town. They are good people. Hard-working folks who just haven’t caught a break in a long time. I grew up in a town like this, except with hurricanes, not snow. We didn’t have enough jobs to go around and life was just one long attempt to make do.”

She took a deep breath.

“I’m sick of seeing people just get by, Mike. Believe it or not, these folks here are my people and I know Hodges will be good for them. He makes folks believe in him and then they believe in themselves. We harness that and we’ve got another Teddy Roosevelt on our hands. Or another FDR.”

Mike missed a shot and Dee bent over to take her turn, effortlessly putting her ball in a pocket.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence.” Mike said. “Maybe it’s nothing to do with his time in Central America. Perhaps the cops are right. The shooter is just crazy.”

But even as he said the words he did not believe them. He remembered the look the woman gave him in their last meeting in prison. When he said Hodges owed his success to her. She looked angry, hateful, full of spite. But not insane.

“Nope. I don’t buy it,” Dee said. “I don’t like coincidences. I don’t believe in them. We got to keep digging. The stakes are getting higher every day.”

And with that she cleared the rest of the table.

* * *

THE KNOCK on the door of Mike’s hotel room woke him. He glanced at the glowing alarm clock on the bedside table; it read 1:43 a.m. He turned over, wondering if he dreamed the sound, when it came again.
Tap, tap.
Then a low whisper, seeping through the wood, coiled into his memory like a snake.

“Mike, Mike, Mike…”

Jaynie?

It couldn’t be. Mike bolted upright. Then he stumbled over to the door and switched on the light. He kept the chain on, but opened the door a crack, and peered into the corridor.

She stood there, thin and forlorn, her brown hair, still parted in the middle as he remembered it and falling over her face. His Jaynie. But she was changed so much he drew an intake of breath. Her face was gaunt and lined, her cheeks shadowed by hollows. She looked ten years older than when he last saw her – when she hurled pots and pans and screamed at him to leave her alone. That Jaynie, at least, was full of fire and life. But the figure before him did not look like she could lift a plate, let alone throw it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She smiled at his voice, her eyes lit up and her dimples, that he once loved so dearly, flowered at the corners of her mouth. For a moment, he saw his old lover there, standing in the shell of who she used to be.

“Mike!” she said. “Let me in. It’s freezing out here.”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot and held herself with her arms. But Mike knew she wasn’t cold. The hotel corridor was every bit as warm as his room. She was tweaking. She was high.

What else could he do? He opened the door anyway. She hugged him and he felt her twig-like arms grab him around his waist. She held him tight; her fingers dug into his back and triggered memories that flew into his mind. Of endless nights together. Of happy times. He wriggled out of her grasp and beckoned her to sit down. She perched on the bed and Mike sat in a chair. A brief frown, intended to be flirtatious, creased her brow and she patted the bed beside her. Mike shook his head.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Sean came around,” she said. “He said you were working with the Hodges campaign and then I read in the paper that he was speaking here. So I just got in my car and drove. It’s only a few hours and there aren’t many hotels in this town. I knew you’d be in one of them.”

She was always someone who went anywhere on a whim. Long before the drugs took hold, when they were just teenage lovers, she often took him off on wild goose chases, sudden hunting trips in the woods, or on inflated inner tubes down a river. She was a beautiful, carefree soul, who dragged him onto life’s dance floor, always whirling and twirling, yet never seeming to get anywhere.

“It’s good to see you, Mike. You look great,” she said.

“You too,” he lied. She knew it too. A tremor of her lower lip showed it for just a moment, like a cloud flitting across the sun, and then she continued with breezy cheerfulness.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this, Mike. Working on a presidential campaign! For a guy like Hodges too. What’s he like?”

But Mike was in no mood to chat.

“Jaynie, it’s the middle of the night. Why are you here?”

She looked at him and the light slowly faded out of her eyes. The cheerfulness evaporated. Her shoulders sagged and her head fell down.

“I just wanted to see you, Mike,” she whispered.

Mike closed his eyes and felt his heart swell. He could not equate the girl he fell in love with and the woman he married, with this broken spirit. He went over to her and held her close. She rested her head on his chest and he stroked her back, kissing the crown of her head. Just once. Just like he had always done. His touch seemed to calm her. Whatever drug she was on, she was at the end of her high. The toxins left her system and she drifted off into sleep. When her breathing steadied and he knew she would not wake, Mike lifted her gently onto the bed and pulled the covers over her. Then he went back to the chair, used his jacket as a blanket, and tried to sleep himself.

* * *

GENERAL CARILLO sat on his patio and faced the ocean at sunset. The police chief, Zaragosa, was with him again. But this time Carillo felt no resentment about the presence of the drunken buffoon. It was sad, perhaps, but Zaragosa was as close as he got to a friend in these parts. Not just a friend either. A former comrade-in-arms, who respected him, who loved him and understood his fight for his country. So it was good that Zaragosa should share in this moment of celebration and longed-for reward. This time Carillo happily broke out the good Chilean wine and also a box of fine Cuban cigars. Puzzled but grateful, it was only after Zaragosa was on his second glass and smoking one of Carillo’s fine El Rey Del Mundos that the policeman asked what they were celebrating.

“My reward!” Carillo proclaimed and raised a toast to the sun setting behind the hills behind them.

Zaragosa was puzzled but reluctant to press on.

“Let us just say, I have benefited from recent events and at last the true value of my sacrifices is being recognized. Livingston may be my home still, but I can afford to live a little more in the style of my forefathers.”

Zaragosa smiled, his lips parting to reveal teeth now stained with wine too. He did not know what the General was talking about, but the old man appeared pleased. That could only be good for him and he tentatively reached out to fill his glass again. Carillo did not stop him and so Zaragosa greedily splashed the liquid into his cup.