Woman King (31 page)

“I think it’s time for you to leave, Stoner.
You’ve delivered your message,” I said. “Now you can go back and
report that you’ve done your job.”

“Yes, but what is your response?” he asked
tersely. “Will you quit the race?”

“I said we would think about it. You don’t
believe I would actually make that decision for Levi without
discussing it with him,” I said, feigning surprise. “I am a
campaign manager, not a puppeteer.”

He rose from his seat, his eyes full of
malicious intent. He seemed poised to say something, maybe a
threat. I decided to cut him off.

“Halbert, you mad, old stray dog,” I said.
“Look at you chained up at the post, waiting to attack. When you
sold your soul to the devil, did you expect to become his pet? I’m
through being your meal ticket, so you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Now, I think you had better leave before my boyfriend comes over
and disembowels you right here at the table.” That caused Halbert
to look up and search his surroundings.

William had come into the café minutes
earlier. I could feel his presence as he pressed gently to signal
his arrival. As Halbert made for the doors to leave, I turned
around and scanned the room until I spotted William sitting in the
far corner, reading a book. I knew he would not approach me until
we were outside. We had agreed on a plan to help protect the
campaign. I would drive to Palo Alto alone. He would follow later
by train, so there would be no second vehicle for the media to
notice.

After Halbert exited, I rose slowly from my
seat, giving my lower back a chance to catch up with the rest of my
body. I grabbed my bag and left the café. William was already
outside waiting for me.

“Miss Shepherd, my name is William. I’ll be
driving you back to the hotel,” he said, his words intended for
anybody who might be watching.

I nodded and stayed mute, as I was certain
Halbert was nearby watching. I handed William the car keys, and he
slowly walked behind the car toward the driver’s side, keeping
vigilant along the way. One part lover, one part bodyguard, I
thought to myself, although he picked right up on the
sentiment.

“With me, they are one and the same, darlin,
one and the same,” he said. “How did the interviews go? Good
news?”

I was almost too excited to speak. “Really
well, and the phone surveys, too,” I said. “As far as our research
is concerned, voters don’t hold Levi responsible for his friend’s
remarks. If Richard issues an apology and disappears for the rest
of the campaign, we should be able to right this ship.”

“Is that what you told Halbert?” William
teased. “He looks awful, by the way.”

“Wow, vampires have excellent hearing,” I
said. “What else did you hear?”

“Apart from threatening to have your
boyfriend kill him, I think my favorite line was ‘mad, old stray
dog,’ ” he said. “I believe you could write your own bluegrass
songs.”

We both laughed and I slid back in my seat,
relieved to have someone to talk to after such a grueling day. He
took my hand in his as we drove, and within minutes we reached the
circular driveway of the Four Seasons. William insisted we check in
under his name and booked us into a suite on the 15th floor. It
made sense. We needed a large room to work in, and didn’t want
anyone in the media to know our whereabouts while we prepared for
the next day.

I scanned the suite as the bellman led us
into the living room, checking for electrical outlets, the one
thing hotel rooms always have too few of. This was to be our
campaign’s secret field office for the next several hours. Gabriel
and Levi were set to arrive shortly. Maggie was on her way,
bringing a portable wireless printer. We would need enough
electricity to power a small city, when everyone in our group
arrived with their phones and laptops.

When Maggie arrived, William left the main
room, leaving us to set up my laptop and the printer. As was his
way, he’d wandered off into one of the suite’s two bedrooms to read
and play guitar. Since we’d met, I found myself repeatedly taken
with his ability to sit quietly and soothe himself. I hoped when
the campaign was over, he would teach me how to adopt some of his
methods, although I had serious doubts I had the personality to be
so restful with my time.

Not long after we set up, there was a gentle
knock at the door. William walked out of the bedroom to
investigate.

“It’s them,” he said, peering through the
peephole, and he quickly opened the door.

Gabriel and Levi walked in, looking
exhausted. Twenty-four hours is a long time to be in the churn of
the news cycle, and from the look of things, it had been rough on
them. I could feel Levi’s deep, deep sadness at the predicament he
found himself in. Gabriel, on the other hand, was angry, with
Richard, I presumed, or maybe even me.

He wanted to know what had happened today.
The thought came into my head clearly and I sent one back just as
fast.
All in good time
, I pushed back to him.
I will set
your mind at ease
. He looked up and nodded, a thin smile on his
face.

Levi and Gabriel went into the living room,
sinking into a pair of plush library chairs that had been decorated
in a jaunty brown and blue French sailor stripe. Now that they were
both comfortable, I jumped at a chance to try to relieve Levi.

“As you know, I’ve spent the better part of
today interviewing registered voters, while Maggie and Patrick from
our campaign conducted about fifty phone interviews, using numbers
we got when we ran our poll of the participants who had given
permission to contact them again.”

Levi listened, trying to be patient, but
clearly wished I’d cut to the chase.

“The bottom line is that after dozens of
interviews with voters, we believe that this will not harm your
campaign permanently, so long as Richard apologizes and you
indicate very concretely that you disagree with his views. If we do
those two things, we should be able to pull out of this.”

“The donation,” Levi asked. “Is that still
something we want to do?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Tell me what you have
in mind.”

Levi leaned back in his chair and closed his
eyes as he spoke. “I have a friend who founded a charity in the
Valley called Vocational Service Corps or VSC. It’s a non-profit
that helps people find employment and provides classes to improve
skills, rewrite resumes, those kinds of things. I am prepared to
donate $5 million over the next five years to help start a drop-in
program for people who’ve been notified they’ll lose their jobs.
Studies show people who prepare are often better able to find work
quickly. I’ll place one hundred percent of the money in a trust for
them and they can draw the funds annually.”

“
Ç’est bon
,” Gabriel said.

“It’s perfect, and very generous,” I
said.

Levi shook his head ruefully. “The sad thing
is that I planned on doing something like this anyway, but now it
will also look like a gesture forced under duress.”

“Yes,
mon ami
, but it’s an elegant
gesture, and that is what will be remembered

****

Our game plan in place, I sat down to write
Levi’s speech. The words were swimming around in my head, and I was
eager to get them down on paper. As I typed away, I raised one eye
from of the computer screen to glance at the others in the room.
Gabriel appeared to be introducing William to Levi, who glanced in
my direction, a look of surprise on his face. William must have
seemed like a man conjured up out of thin air, and I wondered how
Gabriel was explaining my new paramour to his old friend. I decided
not to guess. It was more important to work than to speculate at
this point.

I wrote for a few more minutes and then
glanced up again, amused to see the three men consulting what
looked to be the room service menu. Another test, I thought.
William would have to feign the absence of an appetite in front of
Levi, or find another way to distract him from his lack of interest
in food. Again, I opted to work, rather than worry. William had
survived more than 100 years without me, so I was certain he would
manage this evening. By the time the food was delivered, I had a
decent first draft of a speech for the team to review.

Gabriel, it turned out, helped play a role in
William’s diversion. The meal he’d ordered consisted of raw fish.
Sushi and sashimi are foods I knew William’s system could tolerate
in small doses.

“It’s better not to eat a heavy meal when we
need to be thinking on our toes,” he said, as the waiter wheeled in
a cart with assorted fish and a bottle of vodka on ice. “We can
always order more if we’re hungry later.”

I watched William out of the corner of my eye
as he picked up a pair of chopsticks and deftly nibbled on a piece
of tuna. The shot of vodka went down more easily, his system long
accustomed to hard alcohol. Still, his ability to blend in was
admirable, and I concluded that vampires were the best chameleons
I’d ever encountered.

I turned out to be the one without the
appetite—too keyed up to eat. I managed a few bites and then took a
shot of vodka for courage. It was difficult to believe as I
surveyed the room that only the night before, I’d been floating in
a ten-feet-deep, salt-water pool at Hearst Castle, making love and
drinking Champagne.

Elections once again were proving to be a lot
like a long drive on a narrow mountain road; one false move and you
were in danger of swerving over the side. This speech was to be our
way of getting back on course safely. I hoped we could do it
without any more injuries.

After the meal, I handed out copies of the
speech. Levi got out of his chair, walked over to a desk nearby and
began making notes on his copy.

Gabriel handed his pages right back to me,
saying, “This is his speech; I will let him make the first
comments.”

Levi returned to our circle of chairs,
handing me his notes.

“You’ve always been a good writer, Olivia,”
he said. “But this has to come from my heart if it’s going to be
credible, so I’ve made a few modifications.”

His changes were great. I nodded. “Let me
update your remarks, and then we can rehearse.”

By midnight, Levi had completed several
practice runs of his speech, as we made minor tweaks to the
language along the way. By 12:30 we disbanded, Levi and Gabriel
going to their rooms in the hotel. Maggie was bunking in the spare
room in our suite, and had long since retreated to get some rest
after what had been one of the toughest days of her young political
career. I stood in the window of the room massaging my neck,
listening as William locked the door to the suite.

“I need to try to be more ergonomic,” I said,
as he took over pressing on the tender pressure points in my neck
and back. “Political campaigns are hard on the human body.”

“Seems that way,” he said. “It feels like you
have a rock embedded in your shoulder.”

I laughed. “That’s been there for a while, if
you try to remove it, my arm will fall off.”

“As soon as this campaign is over, we’re
going on a vacation,” he said, continuing to knead my muscles.
“Some place where you can relax and stop thinking about everyone
else’s problems.”

“Hmmm, sounds lovely,” I murmured as the
muscles in my neck finally relented into a relaxed posture. “Let’s
get through tomorrow and then we can start thinking about
vacations.”

I watched the reflection of William’s face in
the window break into a smile. “I’ve been observing you since this
all began this morning. You always do what’s necessary first,
regardless of your needs or wants. I understand now how Gabriel
came to choose you for his team; you seem to have an abundance of
something that is rare in humans.”

“What’s that?”

“Discipline,” he said, as he walked us to our
bedroom.

Once there, I quickly undressed and collapsed
into bed, managing a feeble “good night” to William before I dozed
off.

Discipline was definitely what I needed to
get out of bed the next morning when my alarm went off. The first
beeps of the small plastic box on the nightstand had gone
unnoticed, but when my phone chimed in with the backup alarm, I
opened my eyes. It took a few moments to remember where I was,
having failed to sleep in my own bed the last two nights. Finally
though, I brought myself up to speed and rolled over to look for
William. I hadn’t expected to see him, since sleeping wasn’t a
vampire’s main form of leisure.

I didn’t I mind though, since I don’t like to
snuggle when I sleep. Lying flat on my back with nothing, and no
one, near me is my preferred way to slumber, so William was the
perfect bedmate. Reluctantly, I got out of bed and went in search
of the workout clothes I had hastily packed the day before.

As I pulled on my running tights and a
fleece, I began to think about the day’s schedule. I was grateful
to get in some exercise before the day started. Fortunately for me,
the Four Seasons had a world-class fitness center only a few floors
away by elevator. After lacing up my shoes, I padded down the
hallway in search of William. As expected, he was reading in the
living room, a guitar propped against his chair.

“What are you reading?” I asked, knowing he
heard me coming down the hallway.

“Come and give me a kiss and I will tell
you,” he said, setting his book on a side table. “You slept well?
Feel OK?”

“Despite the utter chaos of yesterday, yes, I
do,” I said, as I settled into his lap. “I went to sleep feeling
very optimistic; we’ll see if my intuition holds true.”

I received a kiss for my optimism, a very
deep long kiss, and then a second more gentle kiss in the small of
my neck near my shoulder. Such intimate, peaceful play was new to
me, and it made my heart soar. It would have been wonderful to stay
in his arms for the remainder of the day, but I was back to
reality. “I need to go to the gym,” I said rising from his lap. “I
need to get some exercise in before the day grows too long.”