The Candidate (9 page)

Another slew of caucuses reported. Hodges ticked up. He hit eight percent now and Stanton slipped to 40. Hodges was in fifth place, bunched with a handful of other candidates. It was excruciating. But gradually the results flowed in, coming from bigger and bigger caucus meetings. They swept through the college towns where Hodges focused so much of his campaign’s strength and out into the blue collar suburbs of Des Moines, Davenport and Sioux City. From fifth place, Hodges’ numbers broke from the pack. Suddenly he was in third, notching up 15 percent. Then he was in second, just 12 points behind Stanton. Then ten points behind. Then eight points. Then five.

Then it was over.

Stanton won with 33 percent of the vote. But Hodges was second with 28 percent. It was an astounding result. Mike leapt up from his bed and called Dee. She answered the phone, or at least he thought she did. He could hear nothing on the other end but the sound of screaming, partying, cheering and cries of joy. He knew what she was doing. No words could describe their achievement so she held up her phone at their campaign headquarters and let the sounds travel down the line. Mike laughed and danced on his bed, fizzing his beer like a champagne bottle, giggling and whooping like a schoolboy.

* * *

THE NIGHT air was so cold that it penetrated the car’s wheezing heating system as Mike steered it down a dark lane towards the trailer park address that Tobar emailed him. It was 4.30 a.m. and yet he realized he might already be too late. The men and women who worked the early shifts in the meat packing plants were already on the move, freezing half to death as they hitch-hiked to work or jammed themselves like sardines in mini-vans.

The road Mike followed was pitted and rough but broad and he was surprised to see a long line of cars and SUVs parked to one side. He drove slowly past them, aware also of shadowy figures milling about, adjusting clothes, putting on helmets. What the fuck? Mike thought. Then he understood. Immigration.
La migra.
There was going to be a raid. Shit.

One figure loomed out of the dark and put out a hand to stop the car. A flashlight lit up his face. Mike slowed the car and leant out of the window, making sure they could see his white skin and red hair.

“Pardon me, buddy. I’m late for work,” Mike said, slowing but not stopping. The figure waved him onwards.

Mike did not dare speed up until he was out of sight. He could not give the impression he was about to warn anyone in the trailer park ahead. He drove slowly around a bend in the road and only then floored the gas, sending the car skidding off at speed and through the gates of the trailer park. Feverishly he looked at the address and wondered how he could find the right trailer in this mess. He got out, the cold blast of night air chilled him, but he was too panicked to feel it. He raced from trailer to trailer, checking the number, like trying to solve a puzzle. He prayed with each second that he would find it before the raid began. Finally, he got lucky. It was a tiny little trailer, tucked up against a thick line of trees and bushes at the edge of the park. He ran up to the thin, plastic-covered door and furiously knocked on it. There was no response. He rapped again, hissing Ernesto Benitez’ name.

“Ernesto! Ernesto Benitez!”

He thought he heard movement inside. But it quickly stopped. He imagined the man, crouching low on the other side of the door, suddenly afraid at this intrusion into his already scary world. Mike knew there were only a few seconds left. He spoke in rapid Spanish.

“
Amigo, la migra
is coming. Soon. You have to get out. I can help you.”

Silence.

“
Amigo.
I just want to talk. I promise. You can come with me now, or
la migra
will have you in a minute.”

The door opened.

Ernesto Benitez was a slight figure, perhaps in his early 30s. His face was a golden brown and his eyes wide and dark. He looked terrified. The door opened just enough for him to peer out. Suddenly, his eyes widened and a flash of light, bright as the sun, illuminated the scene. With a roar of revved engines vehicles poured into the trailer park. The raid began.

“Fuck!” cried Mike.

He rammed his shoulder against the door and sent Benitez flying across the room. Mike grabbed him by the collar of the sweatshirt he was wearing and hauled him to his feet. He looked straight into his face.

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

Benitez nodded and gestured to the rear of the trailer. There was another door there. They both ran and Benitez flung it open. It led straight into a thick patch of trees and bushes. It was so dark that they could barely see. But the flashlights shining from behind them, swinging low and high, like a crazed menagerie of lighthouses, spurred them onwards. Mike ploughed ahead first and plunged into the bushes. Twigs and branches, bare of leaves, clawed and ripped at his arms and legs and he put up a hand to protect his face. Behind him he could hear the grunting and footsteps of Benitez. But Mike did not dare to stop and look behind. He knew they had to put as much distance between themselves and the raid as possible.

“Keep close to me!” Mike said. Finally the lights and the sounds of shouting and crashing doors faded behind them, replaced by the stumbling of their own feet on the frosty earth. Eventually they stopped on the banks of a meandering stream that crossed their path. They both doubled-over in an effort to catch their breath. With his hands on his knees Benitez looked over at Mike.

“Who are you?” Benitez asked. They were the first words he had spoken. His Spanish was unusual, with an accent that Mike could not place. Almost as if it were a second language, too.

“A friend,” Mike said and he stood up and plunged into the stream. His feet sank into the icy water and mud up to his knees. He gasped in sheer pain, but he hauled one foot in front of the other, like wading through thick, half-frozen treacle. The splashing behind him told him that Benitez was following, and as they finally reached the other side, Mike saw the glow of neon and the distant roar of traffic through another stretch of trees on the other side of the stream. Five minutes later they stumbled out into the forecourt of a truck stop. He saw a 24-hour diner. It looked dingy and dire, yet it was the most welcoming thing Mike could imagine. Mike stared at it, at last confident they had escaped.

“Come on,” he said. “Let me buy you breakfast.”

* * *

MIKE HAD never seen someone eat so fast as he watched Benitez wolf down a huge stack of pancakes, eggs and bacon. The immigrant’s coffee cup went untouched as he ate and, after a while, Mike pushed him his own plate of food too. He never felt hungry this early in the morning and the hurried run through the night left his innards gurgling with nerves, not desiring greasy food. Benitez accepted Mike’s plate eagerly and scraped off the food onto his own.

When the man finished eating, Mike explained he worked for Senator Hodges. Instantly Benitez froze. He glanced left to right, and back again, as if considering making a run for it.

“
Tranquillo
,” Mike said. “You are not in trouble. But at the motel, the Havana in Des Moines, you cleaned the room of the woman who tried to shoot him. You know that right? That’s why you left?”

Benitez bent forward and lowered his voice. “I knew she was evil. The moment I heard her speaking our language. I knew it from the look of her. She has the bad spirit in her.”

Mike was puzzled.

“She was speaking Spanish?”

Benitez shook his head. Then he lifted his chin a little higher and seemed to grow in stature.

“No. Not Spanish. I am Mayan,” he said. “From Guatemala. She is too. When I came into her room, she was praying on the floor, saying a prayer I remember from childhood, and she was speaking in my language, Kaqchikel.”

Mayans? Mike was stunned. He knew next to nothing about them, apart from half-remembered history lessons and the images of lost cities in a jungle. Then suddenly Benitez spoke again and this time the words coming out of his mouth were like nothing Mike had ever heard before. They were low and guttural and transported them to a different world, far away from their surroundings in the Kansas diner.

“
Tek riyix niben orar

tibana’jun oracion achi’el re
’”

“What?” Mike said.

Benitez laughed.

“How do you call it? The Lord’s Prayer, I think,” he said. “That was what she prayed. She asked for help and guidance. I thought I was dreaming when I heard her. But she finished her prayer as I watched. She was on her knees and I saw it in her face. She had dead eyes. Empty. I have seen that look before, from people who fought or suffered too much in the war.”

“Did you talk to her?”

Benitez shook his head. “I left her to her prayer. I never wanted to see her again. But then the next day I see what happened with your Senator. I see a picture of her. I ran for it.”

Benitez looked at Mike with pleading in his eyes.

“You have to understand. My coming here is my family’s last chance. I am illegal. I cannot afford to get in trouble. I cannot talk to police. I just want to work and earn some money to send home. Then maybe my cousins, maybe one day my own children, will go to school. That’s all I want.”

He paused again.

“These are not my problems.”

He looked down at his empty plate and then stood up. “Thank you for the breakfast. But that is all I know. I have to get to work.”

“What about
la migra?
The raid?’

Benitez shrugged.

“They will have gone by now. They only raid the trailer parks, never the factories. If I go to work I am safe. It is just a game show that you play in this country. Like those ones you have on TV. Today I survived to play another round. So I go to the factory. Goodbye, Mike.”

With that he left and trudged out of the truck stop and headed for the freeway, looking to hitch a ride into town, his shoulders hunched, his head tucked into his chest against the cold wind, revealing nothing of the man inside.

CHAPTER 7

THE PLANE FROM Kansas City to New Hampshire flew right over Iowa. Mike looked down at the flat checkerboard landscape of fields and towns. It was hard to believe the intensity of the campaign down there could be switched off in an instant. It was a brutal process. But the moment after the last caucus vote was tallied, the various campaigns across Iowa calculated their chances and made their choice. Most folded. A few struggled on. Hodges and Stanton both declared victory and headed straight to New Hampshire. Not an extra hour was spent in Iowa. The state served its purpose and was now cast aside. Hodges and his top staffers touched down in New England before the clocks struck midnight.

“It’s the best flight in the world. The one that leaves Des Moines on caucus night,” Dee told him as he reported his findings in Kansas to her. “There are only two real tickets out of Iowa; first class and coach. Hodges is in coach at the moment and Stanton’s still flying in style. But we’ve got our mind set on an upgrade.”

Now Mike joined them.

The plane touched down in Manchester airport and he looked out over a landscape covered in ivory white snow. It lay in drifts up to four feet deep, with the runway carved out as a black scar, safe for the plane to land on. Different state, different territory, but the same awful, freezing cold. The same headlines too. Stanton may have won in Iowa, but Hodges’ breakthrough was the main news. In the space of a few short weeks his campaign propelled him from nowhere to right on Stanton’s heels. Columnist after columnist praised Hodges as a new sort of politician and smacked their lips at the coming battle against Stanton, the ultimate machine politician in the party. The official field of candidates still in the race stood at five. But everyone knew it was down to just two. Hodges versus Stanton. The Revolutionary versus the Old Guard. Mike drank in every word he read.

A beep on his phone indicated a message and he held the device to his ear as he trooped through Manchester Airport, looking for the campaign volunteer Dee said would be picking him up. But his purposeful march was dulled by the tinny voicemail and he slowed to a halt. It was a message from Sean.

“Hi Mike,” Sean said. “I guess you’re busy, but I thought I’d let you know about Jaynie. I went around to her old place and she’s not living there anymore. Apparently she’s up in some trailer in the Heights.”

There was a pause, as Sean gathered his spirits to say more.

“It don’t look good, Mike. People who’ve seen her think she’s pretty messed up. Maybe you can get some time to come home for a spell? I know she’s not your wife anymore, but it might do her some good to see you.”

Mike could not listen. He stood there and his mind raced with a mix of guilt and pain. He felt Jaynie’s hands reaching out to him, half in supplication, half trying to drag him down. Then he jumped as a hand tugged at his sleeve. It was a young man, wearing a Hodges campaign T-shirt.

“Mr. Sweeney, sir?” he said in a way that made Mike suddenly feel old. “I’m your ride up to Berlin. Are you all right?”

Mike smiled and pulled himself together.

“Come on, let’s get going.”