Blood Lake (54 page)

A dark-haired white girl named Lauren who's gulping down a twenty-four-ounce jug of 7–11 coffee asks if she can help me. When I explain the situation, she says that they've been getting calls all morning from people complaining that their polling places have been changed at the last minute. And oddly enough, all the people getting the calls have been
latinos
who are more likely to vote for Sánchez. Now
that's
what I call a pattern of criminal behavior.

“How widespread is it?” I ask.

“It's happening all over the city.”

Ave María purísima
.

I tell her, “I can't cover all five boroughs, but I'm sure as hell going to find out who tried to play me with that robocall.”

“It's too late for us to hire you.”

“Fuck that, I'll chase this one down for free.”

I start with my Caller ID history, which displays the “Unknown Number” message. But the guys I'm after aren't exactly the rebel underground trying to hide the source of their short-wave radio transmissions from the evil empire. I've got a friend who can trace the source of the call to an actual phone number in about ten minutes, which I can usually turn into an address using the standard databases, reverse look-ups and such. But he's not answering at any of his numbers. So I switch tactics and call the phone company and tell them that someone has been calling me at all hours of the night, waking up the kids and harassing me with sexual remarks, and I want to know where the goddamn calls are coming from.

The operator is sympathetic, but tells me she can't divulge the location of the phone number without prior authorization from the proper authorities.

I let her hear it in my voice that I'm nearly overcome with frustration and rage over being victimized like this, and that I'm about to break down and cry when she whispers the number of an extension and says, “Hang up and call back. I'll get it in the other office.”

Wars never hurt anyone except the people who die.

—Salvador Dalí

The county headquarters of the party machine is a sleek, antiseptic building shaped like a chilled slab of cream cheese. They managed to dress up the main reception area by using the same walnut-to-brass ratio as any suburban corporate office, and I have to say that they've turned it into a sharp-looking place. It's certainly a long way from the brick-strewn alleys where their time-honored tactics were test-marketed for the first time. But back by the boiler rooms where the dirty deeds are done, they decided to go with linoleum tile and fluorescent lighting, and I happen to know that the contractor got a sweetheart deal on the fixtures, charging $4 per bulb
in
bulk
when I can walk into any hardware store in the city and pay $1.99 for the same bulb.

When I tell them I called ahead about volunteering for today's get-out-the-vote drive, the receptionist directs me to a plucky young man who whisks me down a corridor and into a long, low room lined with banks of shiny white phones that are humming with activity. He hands me off to a woman with a mile-high hairdo and some mighty strong perfume who flashes a Kool-Aid smile at me when he tells her that I'm bilingual, and says that she's really happy to see me because they really need Spanish speakers working the phones. Really they do.

She sticks a Post-It in the paperback she was reading and clicks something on her computer screen. I look at the cover of the book and recognize the subgenre immediately. Everlasting love. You know, being in love with a ghost would present
a problem
for most people, but I guess that's the beauty of romance fiction.

She hands me a photocopy of a prepared Spanish-language script, then she accesses a few screens, highlights, clicks, and prints out a long list of
latino
names with matching phone numbers.

She leads me to an open phone and shows me how to work the scam—I mean, how everything works. She even makes me role-play a practice call, and the hardest part is trying not to blow it all by laughing at the mistakes they made in the Spanish.
Y'all couldn't find a native speaker in muthahfuckin' Queens, bitches?
And when she leans over to make sure all the cables are properly connected, a wave of clashing aromas hits me like a magazine full of perfume samples. I finally begin to get the hang of it, and she returns to her desk to find out how it's possible to fuck an insubstantial wisp of ectoplasm. Hey, just because he's been dead for three hundred years doesn't mean he won't have fewer commitment issues than some of the guys I know.

I make about twenty minutes worth of calls at their expense, deviating from the script as I see fit, until I feel it's
safe to ask where the restroom is without attracting any attention. There must be some nice facilities for the party bosses upstairs, but us peasants get a rusty bucket next to the supply closet.

I take the long way back, listening at every door until I strike gold. Now, the polite thing would be to knock first, but since I'm currently suppressing the urge to draw my .38 and kick the goddamn door down, I figure they're getting off easy when I try the knob and swing the door open.

The kid sitting there has got pale, pink skin with eyebrows that are practically invisible, and short, reddish-blond hair that stands up at the sides as if he'd rubbed his head against a balloon.
This guy
is the menacing voice I heard on Harvey's tape?

But it's his voice all right, there's no mistaking it, and I've come in just as he finishes delivering the same threatening message to someone else.

Oh, and right next to him is a state-of-the-art robo-call machine playing the same recording that I received this morning, telling people that their polling places have changed. At least I can say with some satisfaction that it's a shabby little room, and much more in keeping with this kind of set-up than the glitzy offices out front.

“Yes?” he says, smiling up at me with fresh-faced innocence.

“Wait a minute. You mean this
isn't
the Board of Elections?” I say, with mild shock.

The bright, still waters of his smile are gently rocked by a faint ripple of confusion.

“So I've actually got a shot at collecting the reward money for uncovering physical evidence of an organized plot to suppress the vote that results in a felony conviction? That's a couple hundred grand right there, and just think, I owe it all to
you
.”

The corners of his smile wilt like the last rose of summer.

“And by the way, you've also violated the state laws
against using pre-recorded calls to harass people
like me
who are on the federal Do Not Call Registry, for what it's worth.”

And the waters become muddied with worry.

“So who paid for all this?” I ask.

He doesn't answer. No surprise there. But I can hear a pair of heels come clattering towards us on the freshly waxed floor.

“Oh, come on. Stop protecting them, kiddo. You think they wouldn't hang you to save their own asses? Now where'd the money come from?”

Madame de Pompadour arrives, borne along on a cloud of her overwhelming perfume.

“Never mind, we'll find out when we go through the financial records,” I say.

“What are you doing here?” she says. “Are you trying to cause trouble?”

“Oh, I don't have to try, it comes naturally,” I say, dialing a number.

“You'd better put that phone down.”

“No, I'd better be calling the feds so they can come and bag this machine as evidence.”

She tries to grab the phone from me, and when that doesn't work, she orders the kid to shut off the machine while she calls for security to come get me, and that's when I pull out my concealed weapon and calmly explain that a private citizen is allowed to use deadly force to prevent the commission of a felony or the immediate flight of the perpetrators therefrom. Dig?

They dig.

Of course, I don't tell them what
class
of felony. People rarely get shot over white-collar crimes. In fact, people rarely get
prosecuted
for white-collar crimes. I could steal a million dollars with a pen and never see the inside of a jail cell, but if I used a gun to hit a liquor store, I'd be looking at fifteen years hard time.

The point is that all this reminds me of the kind of fraud
committed in the “battleground” states like Florida and Ohio by the same people who want to make Reagan into a saint.

And my only regret is that I didn't bring a bigger gun.

“Rights are free; social justice costs a fortune.”

—Katha Pollitt,
Subject to Debate

The cynics are always saying that a New York DA could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Well, let me tell you, the ruling party machine in this town could
elect
a ham sandwich.

It takes the state attorney general several months to build a case against the local party chairman, Al Crowley, one of those heavyweight party bosses who keep popping up in the headlines squinting at the camera and smiling like the well-fed kings and popes of the High Middle Ages.

In his defense, Crowley says that he was trained during his stint in the military to “disrupt the enemy's communications,” as if it's perfectly all right to treat the opposing candidates in a representative democracy the same as a battalion of hostile troops in a war zone.

But the real scandal comes after they subpoena the financial records, and find out that in order to pay for the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, Mr. Crowley siphoned money from the city's maintenance budget, including payments and supplies intended for Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Those are the guys who take care of the streetlights, which would explain why the lights were never working in our district. When questioned, Crowley says that he could have taken a lot more.

“But my philosophy is never take a hundred percent of anything. Gimme twenty-five percent and I'm happy.”

So now it's a
philosophy
. Move over, Spinoza.

The party is content to defend him from charges of “astroturfing,” a method of funneling money to phony grassroots organizations created to pressure local politicians who believe that the groups actually represent the community,
but they take it on the chin when it comes out that Crowley wasn't just corrupt in the service of party ideology, but also for his own personal gain. Imagine that.

He skimmed $5,000 from a children's charity to buy himself a big-screen TV. Really, Mr. Crowley. I mean, at least spend the money on drugs and whores like everyone else, or do something relatively classy like stealing from the highway funds to buy a Mercedes for the wife and a little red Corvette for the girlfriend. But the
kids' charity
? Jeezus.

At least Vivian Sánchez won our district, even though Harvey didn't get to cast his vote for her (he still hasn't received official confirmation of his status as a legally registered voter), and we get to see Helen Marshall, Queens's first African-American Borough President, get reelected to a second term.