The Race (44 page)

These particular demonstrators were young and disaffected—angry at Corey's party over the war, the environment, and its opposition to abortion and gay rights. But what unsettled Corey most was the sheer irrelevance of the rhetoric inside the Garden to anything that addressed the quality of these young people's futures. He looked around him at the placards—"End Ecoterrorism, Defeat the GOP" and "Iraq—25,000 Americans Dead or Maimed, 600,000 Iraqis Dead" and "Protect Our Fighting Men—Uphold the Geneva Convention" and "Jesus Supports Universal Health Care, Not Tax Cuts for the Wealthy" and "Human Rights Means Gay Rights." Two thoughts struck him: that the world of politics was far more complex than those protestors could ever imagine, and that politics as currently practiced richly deserved their hatred and contempt. Though the press of bodies was so close that his shoulders touched theirs, no one seemed to notice him.

Reaching the metal barricades, Corey faced a line of police officers in gas masks. Two Secret Service men were at his back; on one side a tall, awkward-looking young woman held a sign reading "Let Us In"; on the other, a skinny kid with intense dark eyes shouted, "Fuck God, fuck God, fuck God" so loudly that the muscles of his throat strained and his voice nearly drowned out the throb of chopper blades. The target of his catcalls, Corey saw, was a line of delegates, their faces stony and their eyes focused straight ahead, being channeled through an entrance by security guards. Once inside, they would add this experience to their list of grievances against the philistines who opposed the Republican Party, redoubling their efforts to purge America of influences so alien. The barricades, Corey decided, were a metaphor.

Trapped amid the angry, thwarted, and intemperate, Corey waited until the boy next to him had fucked God so many times that he had shouted himself hoarse. "Think they heard you?" Corey asked.

The boy turned to Corey with a look of tension and residual hostility. "They don't see us, they don't hear us—they only hate us. They're no different than Al Qaeda."

This would not be a Hollywood moment, Corey thought, where the candidate circulated among a restive crowd, spreading hope and understanding. That process, were it possible, would take years—and a president far different from what Magnus Price meant to give them. "They don't know you," Corey answered. "You don't know them. And tomorrow it'll be a little worse."

The boy stared at him in sudden recognition. "What the hell are
you
doing here?" he asked.

"Escaping the bubble. It's as insane in there as it is out here."

The boy shook his head. "_You_ have all the power. No one listens to us."

The reasons for that, Corey knew, were too complex to convey with a facile answer. "_I_ would," he answered. "But you'll have to devise a better slogan."

Torn between hostility and confusion, the boy did not answer. "Good luck," Corey said. Turning, he left behind the heat and sweat and press of bodies, the shouts of demonstrators, the thump of chopper blades.

OVER THE PAST hour, Corey discovered, nothing had changed. Blair's secret remained a secret; the rumors about Christy supporting Marotta remained rumors. The convention speaker appearing on Corey's television, a black fundamentalist minister, had been selected by Magnus Price to fuse symbolic diversity—the better to expunge Marotta's racist smears against Lexie in South Carolina—with a denunciation of gay marriage fiery enough to please evangelicals. On Rohr News, the cameras panned frequently to Mary Rose Marotta and her children, the human faces of the party's "Salute to the American Family." Added to the tumult outside the convention, Blair's potential ruin, and his brother's thirteen-year-old suicide note, this choreographed display of hucksterism and hypocrisy deepened Corey's despair. With a resolve no less emotional for its suddenness, he called Lexie.

"You watching?" he asked.

"On and off. There's a limit to what I can stand."

"I don't know how to express this, Lexie, except to simply say it. I want you here with me."

For a moment, Lexie was quiet. "What is it? Are you so convinced you'll lose that whatever you do no longer matters? Or are all those shots of Mary Rose getting to you?"

There was just enough truth in this to give him pause. "I may well lose," he admitted. "And looking at Mary Rose makes me want to scream. But there's more to it than that.

"A lot's happened to me today, more than I have time to tell you. So this may sound selfish. But I'm so much better
with
you that it hurts—I think more clearly, perceive more, face the facts more honestly. I miss that, just like I miss that jolt that comes from looking at you. You've screwed up being alone for me." He paused, then let the rest spill out. "For me, there's never been anyone like you. I don't think there ever will be. I want a life with you."

For a time, Corey's answer was more silence. "I can't be a guest star," she said evenly, "coming in and out of your life, depending on your needs and your ambitions. It's just too hard for me." Repressed feeling broke through her efforts to speak with self-control. "You still want to be president. I'm still black, and I still used to be a heroin addict. Nothing's changed except that you need me."

Glancing at CNN, Corey saw Mary Rose whispering in her daughter's ear. "What if I want to marry you," he said abruptly.

Lexie's laugh was soft, yet astonished. "You
have
had a bad day. By tomorrow, you'll want a child with me."

"Or two," Corey answered. "I admit it's been a difficult day. But one thing's blindingly clear: I don't want to be president without you, and I don't want a life without you ..."

"You're in the middle of a crisis," she protested, "and suddenly you're talking about marriage, even a family, when we haven't seen each other for months. What am I supposed to think?" Emotion made her speak more quickly. "I still love you, all right? No matter what happens, I believe I always will. But it's one thing to marry a senator, another to marry a president. A call like this isn't fair to me."

Corey felt his frustration rise. "You don't want to be just a guest star in my life. You can't deal with the idea of marriage. Where does that leave you?"

"Waiting out the convention." Lexie's voice softened. "Which, after all, is one of the most important events in your life."

Suddenly, Corey sensed that she was arguing with herself, and that it was best that he stay silent. After a long pause, she asked, "You
really
want me there?"

"Yes."

More silence. "This is crazy," she said. "But if you can find me a hotel room, I can find myself an airplane. I'll have time to regret it later."

"SHE's COMING?" SPENCER asked.

Corey pictured Spencer in his skybox, fretfully distracted from the madness unfolding below. "She's coming," Corey affirmed.

"Then you know what I'm obliged to say. If Lexie shows up, it's another signal to social conservatives that you're not really one of them."

"Look, I've just refused to sign off on Christy's anti-gay agenda. After
that,
Lexie's arrival won't matter all that much. Except to me."

"Except to Christy," Spencer said tiredly. "I just heard that he's planning to hold out through tomorrow night's first ballot. If Lexie appears, loaded down with all that stem-cell baggage, Christy may lose control of his delegates. This impulse of yours could cost you the nomination."

For an instant, Corey wondered what he might have done had he known of Christy's decision. But this was the first down payment on his plea to Lexie, and he could not, would not, turn back. "I want her at the Garden," Corey answered, "in time for the first ballot. Tell Jack to find her a room."

"ROHR'S TEH ONE," HIS PATRON HAD INSTRUCTED GILLIGAN. "HE's GOT too much invested in Marotta to let him go down the drain. Besides, the story's even more fatal to Blair if it comes from the right-wing media."

Over breakfast, Gilligan pondered this. His patron was a shrewd man, but as Grace's reaction had proved, politics practiced under such excruciating pressure was far more art than science, governed by motives too complex to predict—especially those of Marotta and Price. Nevertheless, there was one thing he felt certain of: before tonight's balloting, the destinies of several men would be altered by what he was about to do.

With deep misgivings, he picked up the phone and called Alex Rohr.

TOO MUCH BUSINESS, Price thought, was coming to him directly. It was Wednesday: with so little time until the balloting began, those delegates in a position to bargain insisted on leaving nothing to chance. In the last hour he'd promised to construct a dam; threatened to unleash an IRS audit; promised an ex-officeholder a plum job lobbying for auto manufacturers; given away his own Super Bowl tickets; and confronted a state senator with political ruin. And now Congressman Harold Simpson of Oklahoma, unctuous and borderline corrupt, was back, pimping his endorsement in exchange for a seat on the United States Supreme Court. "Grace has promised me the court of appeals," Simpson said without discernible shame. "That's where I'm perched unless Rob does better."

Nine o'clock in the morning, Price noticed, and the armpits of his dress shirt were already soaked through. "Harold," he promised, "you'll have the second vacancy."

Price's cell phone clicked; a quick look at caller ID showed Alex Rohr's phone number. "Not the first?" Simpson was asking testily.

"Those justices are fucking
old,
" Price snapped. "One of them's eighty-six; another's failing mentally; another's had a bout with cancer. Just keep yourself out of trouble long enough for two of them to retire or expire."

Hitting the flash button, he answered Rohr's call. "What is it, Alex?"

"More trouble than you know. You fucked up big-time, Magnus."

ROB MAROTTA HAD promised Mary Rose that they could take the kids on a Circle Line boat around Manhattan. Though planned as a photo op—partly to display Marotta's confidence, partly to depict his familial devotion on the defining day of his candidacy—it was important to Mary Rose, a reward to the kids for playing their stressful role in a pageant the youngest boy and girl barely understood. And so Price's summons for a private meeting provoked in Marotta both exasperation and anxiety. When Price opened the door to his suite, Marotta shut the door behind him and asked, "What the hell is wrong?"

Sitting down, Price looked shaken. "Blair."

In an instant, Marotta felt anxiety become dread. "What about him?"

"Sit down," Price demanded. "Then call Mary Rose."

Marotta knew better than to quarrel. Phoning his wife, he said, "There's no time to explain, but you'll have to go alone. Tell the kids I'll make it up to them."

Even as he spoke, he knew that Mary Rose shared his thought: the kids were too accustomed to such promises. "There's a problem," he added hastily. "I don't know how bad yet."

"I'm sorry," she answered in an even tone that did not conceal her disappointment. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just give them a nice morning." Marotta paused, acutely aware of Price's presence, then finished: "I love you, M.R."

Getting off, Marotta stared at Price so fixedly that, for once, Price looked daunted. "Blair's gay," he said in a monotone. "He's been sucking or fucking some fitness trainer he sequestered on his payroll. Alex has got documentation, pictures, credit card receipts—everything the media needs to put this out today."

Marotta felt a sudden wave of nausea, leaving him cold and clammy. With the discipline of a lifetime in politics, he tried to break this disaster into its component parts. "Where did Alex get it?" he asked.

"From Sean Gilligan. But Sean claims it came to him anonymously."

"Do you believe that?"

"No. But that's not the immediate problem." Price's speech was jittery. "Rohr's not even telling his own newspeople—as far as he's concerned, Blair's safely in the closet. But whoever gave this stuff to Gilligan has eleven hours left to fuck us. Once he realizes Rohr's covering up Blair's not so little secret ..."

Price's voice trailed off, as though the potential consequences were too ruinous to articulate. "He just sat here and
lied
to us," Marotta said angrily. "If the Christian conservatives find out, they'll pull the rug out from under Blair
and
me. I'd be the guy who gave them a gay candidate for vice president."

"Blair has to go," Price said flatly. "The only question is how we do that without giving Grace the nomination."

"Blair goes
now,
dammit. We'll say his family had a change of heart."

"Then you can kiss off Illinois," Price countered. "If Blair withdraws today, Drew Tully will take the entire delegation over to Grace."

Marotta felt their careful calculus spinning out of control. Every decision they made had consequences no one could anticipate; every decision seemed to pose a choice between victory and integrity. "Maybe we make a deal with Costas," Marotta said at last, "and roll him out at a press conference. That'll distract the media. If someone outs Blair after that, he's already off the ticket."

"You'd only be trading Illinois for New York," Price responded. "The Bible-thumpers don't trust Costas at all, and even if Blair's gone, finding out your first choice was a screaming fag will rile them up still more—especially Christy's people. Then there's Larkin. If we drop Blair now,
he'll
press his case to be your VP."

"Fuck Larkin," Marotta said with quiet vehemence. "The oily bastard owes us—_he's_ the one who sold us Blair in the first place."

For a moment, Price's expression became enigmatic. "Yeah," he said. "I remember. But Sam may not see it that way. He may even try to cut a deal with Grace."

Marotta stood. "So we're screwed no matter what we do—is
that
what you're saying?"

"Maybe." Price's voice was tight, its register higher than normal. "Suppose we prop up Blair for another eleven hours or so, try and keep this together long enough to win on the first ballot.
Then
we'll cut Blair's balls off."

"How does
that
work?"