What It Takes (88 page)

“It’s not true, Ellen,” Lee would say to the phone. “You’re wrong. You don’t understand our relationship. ... I believe him a hundred percent. No. It’s
not
true! If he says it didn’t happen, I believe him. He’s never lied to me.”

And when she wasn’t staring out the window, sure she’d seen someone inside the gate ... when she wasn’t telling someone in the kitchen, she was sure, Gary didn’t lie ... when she wasn’t on the phone telling someone else, she was fine, she was sure ... then, unsure, she tried to remember his voice, the night before.

“I didn’t do anything ...”

She hadn’t forced him to say more. She never made him explain. She just wouldn’t do that.

“Gary ...” She stopped him. Lee always remembered best what she said. “I believe in you. ... Just tell me what happened, and we’ll get through it.”

“Babe, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

But he didn’t tell her what happened. Not really.

She said, “It’s okay. Don’t worry ...” And he might have said something more.

But she said: “No. Gary, just don’t worry ...”

Now she wished he’d call again.

The white boys thought someone had to get to Lee in a hurry. If she flew off the handle, the whole campaign would go tubular (that’s white-boy for “down the tubes”). ... By noon, Lee had called the campaign, to get someone up to the cabin, to manage the press. Within an hour, Joe Trippi was on his way. Trippi was a thoroughbred—young, smart, fast on his feet.

As he hopped out of his van to open the gate so he could drive up to the cabin, Trippi heard the Fox network man doing a stand-up, for
A Current Affair
.

“
And here in Troublesome Gulch, Lee Hart is locked behind these gates. But staffers admit Lee and Gary Hart are talking on the phone
.”

Trippi wheeled on the guy: “Are you married?” Joe didn’t wait for an answer.

“
Of course
they’re talking on the phone.”

Most of the reporters were half-apologetic. “Listen, it’s not my idea to be here ... but is there any chance? ...”

Yeah, Joe thought, a fat chance. Trippi was full of his mission: he would protect Lee and Andrea Hart, he would cheer them, he would keep them from trouble, from woe. ... He drove slowly up to the house. The low log cabin was built into the slope. The narrow side, facing the drive and the gate, held the kitchen and a side porch with a couple of old metal chairs. The living room with the fireplace, the TV, a couch, and Gary’s armchair with the sheepskin to cushion his back, occupied the center of the cabin and most of its space. Off the main room, there was a small front bedroom where Andrea slept, and Gary and Lee’s bedroom in back.

Andrea opened the front door, then retreated. The action was in the kitchen, to Joe’s right. Linda Spangler, Lee’s Scheduler, was there. Lee was sitting at the table. Lee’s friend Trisha Cheroutas was across the table ... they were giggling.

Lee was holding the phone away from her ear. Trisha was yelling at the phone, and at Gary Hart, in Washington:

“We should have cut your THING off, fifteen years ago!”

It was an old joke between Trisha and Gary—went back to 1970, when Gary goaded Trisha into a feminist rant at dinner one night.

“We should cut ALL their things off!”

When Lee hung up, she suddenly thought she’d better explain the joke to Trippi. He looked so stunned. (And so outnumbered! Look at him, with his poor left hand over his crotch.) It occurred to Lee, she really had to take care of Trippi. If he got the wrong idea, he could fall apart.

She thought: you had to see the humor ... otherwise you’re just prey to whatever people said, all the things they thought. ... She stared out the window at the pack at the gate. They were all convinced she was going to divorce him. A woman wronged ... a doormat! How could they understand? Twenty-eight years ... how she tried, they
both
tried ... why should she have to explain
to them
?

She’d had men in the house! Why didn’t they ask about that? Friends of theirs stayed with her—lots of times. Gary knew. And nothing happened. That wasn’t the point. Why didn’t they ask
her
about
that
?

That’s what she’d say to Gary. They’d laugh. She could hear how he’d laugh.
They never asked about her!
... And she knew. She knew there’d been women, yes. She’d tell him, she knew he wasn’t a saint. But God knows, neither was she. She drove him crazy sometimes ... she knew that. She wasn’t easy. A doormat? A mouse? ... For twenty-eight years?

The phone rang, and Lee jumped, but it was only Ellen Strauss again: “Lee, make him come to you. Don’t go running after
him
!”

Lee said: “I’m not going to do that to him.”

Ellen said it’d be good for Gary. Every woman in America would feel ...
justice ...
when he came crawling back.

Lee said: “You’re wrong ...” and she got off the phone.

She turned and said to the kitchen at large: “I’m not going to make him beg for forgiveness.” And then: “She doesn’t understand.”

Who did?

Our top story: Did Presidential hopeful Gary Hart spend the night with a Miami
...

She heard the TV from the living room. Andrea had the stupid thing on nonstop. It wouldn’t shut up. Lee wouldn’t even go into the living room ... “Andrea! Turn that thing OFF.”

“MOM! I want to SEE it!”

Lee turned to the window. “Joe! JOE! They’re coming over the fence! Joe, you better go out ...” Trisha and Linda came to the window to look.

“He’s coming up to the house! ... STOP HIM.” Lee’s voice was high.

Every time a new reporter arrived, the others, bored, would egg him on, to climb the fence, make someone come out. This had to stop. She was at the edge.

“MOM! Are they
kidding
? ...” In the living room, the TV showed a picture of Donna Rice, the model, smiling come-on at the camera. Andrea said, more softly: “How could he be so
dumb
?” Lee thought there was no reason she should go in to look.

“JOE! DON’T LET HIM COME ANY CLOSER.

“DON’T LET HIM COME IN!”

The women watched Trippi out the kitchen door, down the stairs of the side porch. The phone rang—Lee jumped.

“Yeah, it’s crazy here ...” Now, her voice was low. She was trying to speak so no one could hear.

“Don’t worry about it.

“No, we’re fine.

“Love you ...” Lee was almost whispering.

“No. We’re all right. ... Gary, we’ll beat this thing.”

At the campaign HQ, forty minutes away, in Denver, it was all-hands-on-deck. As staffers arrived at the office on Downing Street, Paul Tully, the Political Director, ran down the story—and the line of the day: “Stupid assholes never realized there was a back door! ... Dumb Miami shits thought they had him!”

The Campaign Manager, Dixon, had flown on the red-eye from Denver to D.C. He was blasting away at the
Herald
: they were “hiding in the bushes! ... peeking in windows! ... They have taken a casual acquaintance and simple dinner with three friends and political supporters and attempted to make a story where there is none ...”

The rest of the white boys were still firing calls into Washington, playing manage-the-damage, trying to find out from Hart, then from Broadhurst: What happened? Who the hell was this girl?

Hart sounded dejected. The anger was gone from his voice, but he clung to his victimhood. This was a sneak attack from the press, which he uncovered, and confronted ... at his home! He insisted: Donna Rice, her friend Lynn, and Broadhurst, left Hart’s house Friday night by the back door. Donna slept at Broadhurst’s house.

Problem was, Hart had already talked himself off the high ground. There was his quote,
that very day
. in E.J.’s profile in the
Times
magazine: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”

And it didn’t make any difference that Gary hadn’t meant, “Spy on me in my house,” or that the Miami commandos hadn’t read Hart’s invitation to tail him before they set out to search-and-destroy. The way the timing worked out, it seemed clear: he was
daring
them. (Hey! Whadd’I tellya? Streak of Danger!) ... In a conference call, Denver to D.C, Kevin Sweeney, the Press Secretary, gingerly raised the option of saying: Look, it happened. I regret it, but let’s get on with the campaign.

Hart said, “Oh, that’s just great! You know, Donna Rice has a right to privacy. I’m not the only person involved here. I have a right to privacy and she has the right to privacy. Besides, we didn’t
do
anything.”

Hal Haddon, defense lawyer, said to the white boys: “He’s lying to us. He’s guilty. He fucked her.”

None of the white boys said that to Gary.

Hart didn’t tell them about his boat trip to Bimini.

Broadhurst said Donna Rice was too hysterical to come to the phone. He’d had to give her three sleeping pills. ... Great, Sweeney thought. He could see the headline.

BLOND BIMBO DRUGGED BY HART CAMPAIGN!

What were they going to do with her? If she left Broadhurst’s house, the press would devour her. Sue Casey, the Scheduler, caught the next plane to Washington, to babysit Donna Rice.

Judy Harrington, the Field Director, had three desk people working phones all day. Even if the story on Gary held up, she figured the campaign had a month: by that time, things could change. Meanwhile, she had to give the state coordinators something to say.

“It was all a big mixup. It’s not true. Someone tried to watch Gary’s house, but it’s all wrong. It’s just not true.”

Most of the state coordinators tried to go along. “Damn papers! ... They wouldn’t do this to anyone else.” But a few just said, “Yeah, okay. Sure.” She could hear finality in their voices. She knew, just by calling (Sunday afternoon!) she was sending a signal:
red alert!

In the office, John Emerson, the Deputy Campaign Manager, had a meeting for everybody, down to the volunteers. “Just remember,” he said, “when we’re working in the White House for the President of the United States, the tough calls, the toughest times, will be easier because of times like this ...”

Most of that day, Emmo was closeted in his office, with Haddon, on the phone to Washington, trying to build a record of the facts. People would walk by and hear Haddon, the trial lawyer, grilling Gary—or someone:

“What time did you go to dinner?”

“What time did you get back?”

“Whose car did you come back in?”

“Was anybody with you?”

“Did anybody see you?”

That afternoon, Judy heard Emmo say to Tully: “I’m a team player. Hart can trust me to the moon. But I’m not buying this shit.” Tully didn’t say a thing.

Press calls were flooding Sweeney. Guys he knew, supposed to be big-feet, were
frantic
. Guys like the
Post
’s Paul Taylor, or Paul West, from
The Baltimore Sun
, were on the line for an hour. Sweeney knew there wouldn’t be anything written about Hart except blonde-in-the-townhouse ...
forever
—unless they knocked it down. But he didn’t have anything to knock it down
with
. ... Support would crumble, polls would go down ... meanwhile, Taylor and West kept asking: Didn’t this say something about Hart’s judgment?

Every once in a while, Sweeney would say to Taylor, or West, “Paul, can you hold on a second? I have to pick up another call.” Then he’d punch the hold button, put down the phone and scream, “Fuck!” ... He’d stomp around the room for a minute, then come back on the phone and say, “Sorry about that. Just had to get this other call off the line.”

After six o’clock, Judy went into Haddon’s office. She sat on the floor. She didn’t know how to ask.

“Hal? ...” she said softly. “... How’s this gonna go?”

Haddon just looked at her and shook his head.

Judy began to cry, quietly, in a heap on the floor.

M
ONDAY THE PINKERTON GUARDS
showed up at the cabin. That put an end to reporters climbing the gate, but it only increased Lee’s feeling of being jailed.

“I want to have a picnic,” she said. “Being locked up is driving me crazy.”

Lee and Linda Spangler made sandwiches. They all burst out of the cabin door, and made for the trees, forty yards away, with Andrea, Joe Trippi, and Linda walking in front of Lee, so no one could get her on TV.

The dogs went with them. Andrea worried about the dogs. People
killed
dogs: crazies went after the
dogs
. Andrea would freak out when she saw her big dog, Smoky, on TV. ... Now the pack at the gate was filming the dogs again. They didn’t care what they did! ... That morning at school, reporters were staking out her classes!

“I’ve had it,” Andrea said, and she stalked down toward the gate. “I’m gonna tell those bastards
exactly
what I think ...” Trippi ran after her. “Andrea!” ... But she got to the gate, and, face-to-face with the pack, she stopped. She looked at their grins ... she was making their day! She turned away without a word.

Once they were in the trees, no one could get a shot of Lee, no one could see them at all. They slowed down, and walked a half-mile back on the land, to a boulder in a meadow ... it was Lee’s special place. Andrea went off with the dogs into the woods. Joe started tossing a football. They felt good to be out. They almost forgot.

“Why are they doing this to us?” Lee said, when they sat down. “They don’t, you know ... people don’t understand what you give up ... they don’t know.

“They don’t understand people like you, either.” She was trying to pump up Joe now, to make sure he didn’t feel he’d moved his life two thousand miles for nothing. Lee wanted him to know, she understood. “You picked up your wife and the baby—Joe, you’ve
got
to bring the baby out here. Tomorrow, will you bring her?”

Joe nodded. “I’ll ask Katie.”

“We talked about it,” Lee said. “We knew the life we had was over. The minute he got into this. We knew it would never be the same ... you know?”

Lee was looking at Joe intently. “Do you think I want to give him up? If I had a choice?” She shook her head. “But that’s not right. I have to ...”