No Safe Place (31 page)

“But someone else came to court that day—a man with a gun. The woman’s abusive husband.”

There was a soft percussive pop, like the sound of a bullet firing, and then the picture changed.

Kerry stared at the screen.

The photographer had arrived in the first seconds after the courtroom guard killed Anthony Musso. His photograph caught the deputy standing over Musso. Next to them was Bridget’s body, her arms outflung. Mercifully, her face was turned from the lens.

The picture moved to Kerry.

He was lying in the doorway, his eyes shut, blood seeping from his shoulder, the other arm crooked around a boy whose own eyes were widened in horror.

“Kerry Kilcannon,”
the woman’s voice finished.
“Because caring is more than talk.”

Kerry could not take his eyes off the screen. Next to him, he felt Clayton’s quiet.

You’ll never know,
Clayton had told him then.
It was too fast.

The picture went dark.

“Caring is more than talk,” Kerry said at last. “I don’t even know what happened to the boy. Do you?”

Pausing, Frank studied his face. “Kerry, one photograph of you pulling a dead seagull out of a polluted waterfront is worth ten half-hour speeches on saving the wetlands. Nobody
heard
you yesterday. But they’ll get this.”

Kerry was silent. “One other thing,” Clayton put in. “I’m
rethinking
all this money for television. If we’re broke between now and the convention, Kerry’s completely off the air. It’s the problem Dole had when he ran.”

Frank came back to the table, sitting with an exaggerated slump. “Clayton,” he said wearily, “we’ve already been here. Lose California, and Kerry’s off the air for good. I can just hear Ellen Penn.”

“We’ll talk about it.” Though quiet, Clayton’s voice had an edge. “Later. Tell me what else you’ve got.”

Frank looked from Clayton to Kerry.
Is he dropping out?
Kerry saw him wonder. “That last spot,” he said to Kerry, “also helps you with the kid thing. But you need to do more.”

“The kid thing?” Kerry asked.

“That you don’t have any.”

“Oh,” Kerry said. “That. Is it too late to adopt?”

Only the unaware—Jack Sleeper and Mick Lasker—smiled. “It’s all those pictures of Dick and Jeannie,” Frank responded at last, “with the three golden-haired kids—the perfect albino family. If your number one value is being a good parent and a good spouse, you like the candidate who seems to be one. That’s Mason.

“But it’s got a downside. We’ve done some mall intercepts, and the single women—”

“Mall intercepts?”

“Yeah. It’s like a focus group, only quicker. We go to a mall, pull some folks who look like what we want into a rented room, and ask some questions with the videotape on. In the post-O.J. age, no one seems to mind.”

Kerry smiled in bemusement. “You know what this country
really
needs, Frank? A sense of shame. Instead everyone wants an agent.”

Frank gave a sour smile of his own. “Then this was real value—they did it for free. Anyhow, to single women, the idea of someone single as President is almost like a civil rights issue. They’re sick of hearing about ‘family values,’ like
they
don’t matter.

“So what I want, Kerry, is to put you back in the studio and tape another spot about kids.” Frank hesitated, glancing at Jack Sleeper. “We’ll use
your
line: ‘At the least, a civilized society should spend as much on the first five years of a child’s life as
on our last two weeks when we’re old.’ Only you need to personalize it more.”

“How, exactly?”

“You look into the camera and say you’ve always wanted kids and hope someday to have your own. But that as President, you mean to help every child in the American family.”

Kerry felt himself freeze. From the corner of his eye, he saw Frank Wells look down.

“I won’t do that,” he said. “What I may have wanted, and whether I’ll ever have it, is no one’s business but mine.”

Frank glanced at Jack. “Can we at least use the first one?” he asked Kerry.

There was a long pause, and then Kerry said softly, “I got shot, it’s true. No one can take that away from me.”

Jack pursed his lips. “All right,” he responded carefully. “There’s one more issue that resonates with women—guns. They want something done about them.”

Without a word being said, Kerry felt the subject of his brother’s death enter the room. “So do I,” he answered.

“The question is what.” Sleeper’s tone remained tentative. “Like it or not, a lot of people distinguish between handguns and assault weapons. Some have handguns in their homes, for self-protection. But they think only nuts own AK-forty-sevens.”

Next to him, Kerry saw Mick Lasker begin to speak, think better of it. “Did you have something, Mick?” he asked.

Mick hesitated, then nodded. “I think Jack’s right. Handgun control is volatile here, at least with a vocal minority. With the new open-primary law, some might cross party lines just to vote against you. Assault weapons are the safest line of demarcation.”

“Not for my brother,” Kerry answered gently. “And not for the woman in the picture you just saw. They were killed with handguns. Looking at them afterward, it was hard to appreciate the distinction.”

In the silence that followed, Frank Wells spoke quietly. “
They’re
how we make it, Kerry. Not by focusing on the weapon itself.” He stood again, walking to the television. “I want to show you another spot. Before you react, please think about what you’ve seen.”

There was a certain grim determination, Kerry thought, in the media consultant’s manner. Kerry nodded.

Frank started the VCR.

On the screen, James Kilcannon appeared.

“Kilcannon …, ”
the crowd was chanting. Releasing Stacey Tarrant’s hand, Jamie stepped forward. As he had that night, as he did in Kerry’s nightmare, a gunman appeared at the corner of the screen. Unknowing, James Kilcannon smiled, savoring the last seconds of his life.

The picture froze.

The close-up was of Jamie’s smile. Then his face dissolved, becoming Kerry’s.

“It changed our history,”
the narrator intoned,
“and it changed his life.

“Kerry Kilcannon—he’ll protect us if it’s the last thing he does.”

The spot ended.

Nat Schlesinger, Kerry saw, was slowly shaking his head. Kerry’s mouth felt dry. “Not the last, I hope. I’m having children, remember?”

Frank spoke with equal softness. “I understand your feelings on this. But we asked our focus groups two questions about your brother: ‘What do you remember him for?’ and ‘How do you feel about him?’

“The answers were: ‘I cared about him’ and ‘He died too young.’ When we showed this spot, several cried, most of them women.

“Dick Mason has Jeannie and the kids. For the voters, Kerry, James Kilcannon was
your
family, and you lost him to a maniac with a gun.” He paused, looking around the room, then back at Kerry. “It’s too powerful a message to ignore. Show this spot, and a lot of people won’t care
how
you feel about abortion, or much of anything else Dick Mason may say. And they’ll be with you on handguns without your ever saying a word about them.”

There was a silence, people turning to Kerry; their gazes seemed so uneasy that, to him, it was as if sunlight had hurt their eyes. “I think I can speak for Nat here,” Clayton interposed, “if not for Kerry. It’s too exploitive. The newspapers will hammer us.”

“No one will care about
them
, either,” Frank retorted. “Because it’s a simple statement of fact, and it’s completely overwhelming. And for
Mason
to complain would be like spitting on James Kilcannon’s grave.”

Once more, the other faces at the table turned to Kerry. “You remind me of something,” Kerry said evenly. “Twelve years ago, before I declared for the Senate, Liam Dunn advised me to visit my brother’s grave site. I knew he meant to alert the press, that there’d be pictures.

“Last year, just before I declared for President, your predecessor suggested the same thing.” Pausing, Kerry finished, “They didn’t know that I
never
visit Jamie’s grave. What I do, I do in my own way, for my own reasons. No one else’s.”

Kerry stood to leave.

“Is that your answer?” Frank asked stubbornly. “Go with what we have?”

Kerry turned to him. Frank had his own integrity, Kerry knew; this could not be easy for him. It was that, and Kerry’s memory of using his brother to wound Ralph Shue, which kept his temper in check. “After this is over,” Kerry answered, “I mean to go to Jamie’s grave. For my own sake, when no one else is there. But I could never run that film.”

With that, Kerry thanked them all, and was gone.

After the meeting, Clayton asked Frank Wells to stay behind.

“Don’t push him,” Clayton said. “Not on this. Stacey Tar-rant’s introducing Kerry in Sacramento this afternoon, and it was hard enough to get him to do
that
. Besides, he’s right.

“Everywhere he goes today, the media will do the brother thing. He won’t have to say a word.” Clayton leaned forward. “Kerry has his principles, but he’s not a fool. His instincts are worth a month of polls.”

“That’s why I’m so amazed,” Frank rejoined, “about this whole mess he’s made on abortion. As of this morning, it seems like a death wish.”

Clayton shrugged. “The definition of a
faux pas
, Liam Dunn once told me, is telling the truth at the wrong time.”

“The
worst
time.” Frank’s gaze was level. “What you said about pulling the ads—you’re covering for him, aren’t you? Incase
he decides it’s best to lose.”

Clayton studied him. If Kerry Kilcannon was not a fool, he reflected, neither was Frank Wells.

After a time, Frank’s mouth formed a crooked smile. “You think I’m going to roll over on him, don’t you? Once the whole thing goes south.”

It was the moment of truth, Clayton knew. “You’re in this to make a living, Frank. You don’t want to suffer for some candidate’s mistakes. So you leak.”

Frank’s eyes grew hard. “Let me disenchant you,” he said with asperity. “I could make a better living selling Tide. I’m in politics because I’m a romantic. You’re
not
one. But Kerry is. To be a good candidate, a good leader, you have to be. Because then you not only want to make a difference, you imagine that you can.”

Standing, Frank went to the coffee urn, poured himself a cup, then turned back to Clayton. “For me, Dick Mason would have been the smart choice—he rarely makes a mistake, and he’d kill his mother to win. And if I told Mason to run a spot on his own agony
after
he killed Mom, and had the poll numbers to back me up, he’d do it.

“But I’m a
romantic
, Clayton. Kerry’s passionate and honest—to him, polls exist to figure out how to get people to go with you, not to figure out who you are.” Frank’s voice lowered. “I only hope that we don’t lose him. Because he’s the kind of candidate someone like me waits twenty years for.”

Quiet, Clayton watched him.

“All right,” Frank conceded. “He frustrates me, too. But you know who wears out the people in my business? Candidates like Mason. Because they’re empty, and they want you to fill them up.”

Frank sat across from Clayton again, looking at him intently. “You’re Kerry’s best friend, granted. But not his only one. Dump on Kerry Kilcannon, and I’m dumping on myself.” Frank paused, his voice muffled with sudden, surprising emotion. “Can you understand that?”

For the first time that morning, Clayton felt himself relax. “Yeah,” he answered. “I can understand that.”

Waiting for takeoff, Lara sat in the press section, weary after a sleepless night, edgy from two cups of coffee in a stomach too nauseated for food.

Around her, the plane buzzed with the crazy energy of fifty uprooted people, the nomadic press. A couple of rows back, Lee McAlpine was asking Sara Sax if she’d scored a Secret Service agent the night before and, if so, to describe the experience “for those of us who’ve forgotten whether tab A still goes into slot B.” Moments before, Nate Cutler had taken a seat across the aisle without noticing where Lara was; she had turned to him, expressionless except for the coolness in her eyes.
How could you?
Lara had thought. For that moment, feeling his betrayal, she was not a reporter. Nate had possessed the grace to look away.

The danger, Lara realized, was that others would sense their chill. It was beyond her to feign friendship. Somehow she must blot out Nate’s existence, the humiliation of what he knew; must be a professional, hour by hour, until she could get off this plane and return to whatever life was left after
Newsworld
finished scavenging.

Sitting back, Lara closed her eyes.

She was alone in her apartment, two years before. The room was dark; Kerry pleaded with her on the answering machine. “Lara,” he said, “can’t you see what this will do to us …”

Think about something else.

You were a good reporter after that—more driven but, you hoped, more compassionate. It wasn’t like
this
: a horde of bright and gifted people, spending huge amounts of money
grubbing nuance out of routine stories. You could make a difference.

Kenya. Potentially Africa’s richest country, wallowing in tribalism, its arbitrary borders drawn by white exploiters in the age of colonialism, now run by black exploiters who let the roads break down and communications languish, depriving their people of the means to rise against them. A friend of Lara’s, a Kenyan lawyer and a devotee of Thomas More, had asked to go on-camera to protest the treatment of political prisoners—the use of cattle prods, genital and dental torture. Lara had agreed, and her friend had gone to prison. No one protested; the administration in Washington was indifferent. Finally, when Kenya’s president had visited Washington in search of aid, Lara had persuaded NBC to run a major story on Kenya’s human rights abuses, focused on her friend’s imprisonment. Both the Kenyan president and the administration were embarrassed; the Kenyans had released her friend, and the use of torture—at least temporarily—lessened.