No Safe Place (33 page)

“Not anymore. The new Dick Mason wants four prechosen topics for ten minutes apiece, and the last twenty minutes left open to anything. Mason and Kerry can ask each other questions on every topic, and the questioner gets to follow up. Just like Honest Abe.”

In his own silence, Clayton could almost hear Tony’s thoughts. Softly, he said, “That makes no sense at all.”

“Then let’s figure out what they think is different.”

“Not the candidates,” Clayton answered. “Kerry’s instincts are better, and he knows more. If Kerry challenged Mason on comparative state welfare reforms, the only question is which dies first—Dick’s memory or his audience.” Clayton’s voice grew testy. “It’s the difference between real and unreal, and Mason’s handlers know it.”

“Any reason they’d be feeling desperate?”

“Not
that
desperate. Our polls show Mason winning by a point or two. I’m sure his show the same.”

“Well,
something’s
changed. Before I go back in that meeting and tell them how much we love this, I’d be curious to know what it is.”

Though pleasant enough, Lord’s tone was pointed. Until four years ago, Stacey Tarrant’s husband had been a first-rate criminal lawyer, and though he had abruptly walked away from his practice in favor of public interest work, his perceptions remained keen. That was why Clayton had asked for his help.

“You tell me, Tony. You’re the one in the room with them.”

Tony paused, gathering his thoughts. “They seem more aggressive,” he said. “In the last two days, Mason’s seen Kerry stumble on abortion, and he’s been quick to capitalize. Maybe he thinks Kerry’s been lucky, that he can take him after all—”

Interrupting, Clayton laughed briefly. “A lot of people have thought that. Dick’s the only one still standing.”

“And maybe,” Tony continued in the same calm voice, “Mason thinks he’s got something on Kerry Kilcannon, and has chosen this moment to share.”

Clayton sat down. “What could
that
be, I wonder.”

On the other end, Tony was silent. “I can propose a town meeting,” he said evenly, “where citizens ask the questions. A civic-minded discussion of what the people want to know, in front of a crowd looking for civil answers. It makes personal attacks much harder.”

Tony Lord, Clayton realized, did not believe him. “No,” he answered. “If we refuse what we asked for in New Hampshire, Mason feeds it to the press. More important, it’s not in Kerry’s nature to hide. He’ll take his chances, always.”

“So I make the deal.”

“Yes.”

Slowly, Clayton hung up the telephone.

Sean stood alone on the sidewalk, shifting his weight from foot to foot, a clean-shaven stranger amidst the sex shops, a slum hotel, a dingy Vietnamese restaurant, the liquor store with neon signs for cheap wine and whiskey. The street smelled of garbage and urine.

The last fifteen minutes had seemed like a preview of hell, a parade of human detritus that filled Sean with loathing—the homeless straggler with rags for shoes and trembling hands; the woman on the stoop jabbering vacantly to no one; the small, furtive man who scurried through a red door to “talk to a naked
woman”; the scraggly-haired prostitute with sores on her face,
pale and wasted, who sickened Sean by offering him oral sex. Now and then he saw younger men who seemed to belong here: the skinny black kid who jaywalked with exaggerated languor, owning the narrow street; the mahogany-faced Latino who darted past with an edgy urban energy, perhaps from drugs. Hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt, another young black leaned against the hotel across the street; ignoring the jabbering woman, he inspected Sean with contemptuous leisure. Sean ached for the gun he could not buy.

In a seeming act of will, the black man stood erect and, counterfeiting aimlessness, ambled in Sean’s direction.

He stopped on the sidewalk three feet away, gazing around him. He was smaller than Sean, slighter, with ears that stuck out beneath his pea cap. But when he turned to Sean at last, his dark eyes were hard as bullets.

“Lookin’ for somethin’?”

His tone was impatient, as if Sean was occupying someone else’s space. Through his nervousness, Sean felt himself bristle. He cocked his head, looking down at the black man.

“Like what?” he asked.

The man gave a fractured shrug. “Maybe a rock?”

Sean moved closer. “Not drugs.”

The man’s eyes narrowed; when he spoke, his lips seemed barely to move. “I don’t do that shit. Maybe I can find someone.”

It took Sean a moment to understand, and then he flushed with shame and anger. “I want a gun.”

The man looked around him, quick, darting glances. “A piece.”

Sean nodded.

The man’s eyes bored into Sean’s. “You a cop?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t know about no piece, man.” Pausing, the black man assumed a certain sarcasm. “Selling you a piece is against the
law
.”

Sean stared at him, unsmiling. “A hundred dollars.”

The man gazed at the sidewalk, lips forming a silent, reflective whistle. “Someone find you a piece,” he asked, “what kind you want?”
“Handgun. Nine millimeter.”

One side of the man’s mouth twisted. “You think I own an arsenal? Fucking West Point or something?” He looked up at Sean again. “Want a piece, you take what you can find.”

“Tomorrow morning.” Sean’s voice was tight now. “I want it before nine.”

The man shrugged. “That’s not my office hours.”

Sean clutched the front of his sweatshirt. “Nine o’clock.”

Deliberately, the man removed Sean’s fingers and stared into his face again. “You want a piece that bad, make it four.”

Sean felt a helpless anger. “Four,” he said finally. “Right here.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Without another word, the man turned and sauntered across the street as if Sean did not exist.

When Clayton’s telephone rang again, it was the special agent in charge, Peter Lake.

“Where are you?” Clayton asked.

“Fresno. About to go to Elk Grove, then Sacramento. That’s what I’m calling about. Three local stations there just got the same death threat.”

Clayton sighed. “No reason today should be any different. What did
this
threat say?”

“What the receptionists wrote down was: ‘Don’t you know what day it is? We’re going to kill him on the six o’clock news.’ That probably means Sacramento.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to the senator.” Peter’s voice was dispassionate, professional. “Probably it’s some fraternity kid. But this is the day his brother got shot, and the place where he’s chosen to talk about gun control. The gun nuts have been all over the Internet, asking people to show up there for the rally, egging each other on: ‘Term limits isn’t good enough’—that kind of thing. It could be pretty tense.”

Clayton stared out the window. Since the death of their young son, his deepest fear was for Carlie or the twins, as powerful as superstition. The long nights at the hospital were engraved in his memory—Carlie’s sunken eyes, Kerry’s quiet presence, more eloquent than words of grief he knew they could not stand to hear. Once Kerry had entered the primaries,

Clayton’s second fear had been a stranger with a gun, another tragedy without reason. There was never a day that Clayton did not think of it; never an outdoor rally that Clayton did not suffer through until Kerry was back in the limousine.

“We can’t cancel the event,” Clayton said at last. “And Kerry wouldn’t. You can hear him now, can’t you—‘If I don’t speak, they’ve already won.’”

“I’d never ask him
not
to speak. Just to factor in safety in deciding
when
to speak, and where.” Peter paused a moment. “I know we’ve had this discussion before. But I’d have put this rally indoors, not in a park.”

“Kerry wanted it there. You know why.”

“Then maybe it’s time he wore a vest. Starting tonight.” Peter’s voice was soft. “He’s no good to anyone dead, Clayton. Including himself.”

The comment was as oblique, Clayton realized, as it was acute. “I’ll fly on up,” he answered.

The flight to Sacramento, Nate Cutler reflected, had begun to remind him of
Lord of the Flies
, a descent into the Hobbesian state of nature.

Everyone seemed restless. Other than the pool reporters, no one had seen Kilcannon up close; he had not visited the press section at all. Even Kit Pace was more brisk than normal, guiding local reporters to the front. Needing amusement, the guy from
Newsweek
had taken a plastic food tray and butt-surfed down the aisle on takeoff, drawing whistles, scattered cheers, and one wadded napkin tossed at his head. Watching him whiz by, Lee McAlpine observed, “That’s the tough thing about this gig—it really spoils you for coach class on United.”

Next to her, Sara Sax was scrawling on a grapefruit with Magic Marker, vowing to “penetrate the iron curtain.” Proudly, she showed off her handiwork. The grapefruit now asked: “Senator K—do you favor partial-birth abortion to protect the psychological health of the mother?”

With a flourish, she signed it “Love, Sara,” stood, and rolled the grapefruit beneath the curtain separating the press from Kerry Kilcannon.

Edgy, Nate stood in the aisle, looking about him. Around the table where the food was laid out, four reporters were playing a desultory game of hearts, and in the special section at the rear of the plane, the camera guys were bitching that the new woman reporter from Fox, by ripping down their
Hustler
pinups, had “pissed on the First Amendment.” Heading for a sandwich, Nate felt something hit his foot.

Looking down, he saw the grapefruit.

Nate picked it up. Beneath Sara’s question were the words “I don’t know, Sara—how crazy are you?” In his distinct scrawl, the candidate had signed it “Kerry.”

Solemnly, Nate presented it to Sara. “I can’t be sure,” he told her, “but there seems to be life in the front cabin.”

Reading Kilcannon’s answer, Sara grinned. “It’s a sign,” she proclaimed, and began passing the grapefruit among her colleagues. Only Lara Costello, Nate noticed, read it without smiling.

As Nate watched her, Rich Powell from Reuters, who had known Lara in the Congo, knelt beside her in the aisle, kissing her hand with the grave obeisance that befit a new princess of the media. “Millions,” he said in tones of awe. “
TV Guide
said you’re getting millions. Can this be true?”

Lara smiled. “Every word. Tomorrow I’m incorporating, and endorsing my own line of panty hose. You get two free samples.”

Rich placed his hand over his heart. “Used, I hope.”

Lara tilted her head. “How
are
you, Rich?”

“All right. If I had to draw a candidate, I’m glad it’s Kil-cannon.” He paused for a moment. “You know him, right?”

Watching her, Nate felt her awareness of him, standing two rows away.
“Knew,”
she answered. “I haven’t seen or spoken to him since he decided to run.”

“Big decision, if you’re him.” Rich sat in the aisle, cross-legged. “See Stacey Tarrant’s introducing him in Sacramento? That’s kind of amazing, I think. Or maybe just manipulative.”

Lara shrugged. “The subject’s right, for both of them. And the day. She’ll certainly help draw a crowd.”

“That she will. But I want you to know something, Lara: I’d rather sleep with you than Stacey Tarrant, any day.”

Lara gave Rich a wan smile, patting him on the arm. “I don’t think I’ll be on the ship of fools quite long enough. But thanks for asking.”

Rich shook his head, mournful. “Still monastic.”

“Uh-huh. How can I do my job if all I think about is you?”

Rich laughed at this. Turning, Nate sat down again, reflective.

Lara’s tacit message was clear enough: she had not seen or spoken to Kilcannon; by leaving the campaign, she was taking her ethical problem with her. That would be part of Clayton Slade’s argument to Nate’s editors when—once Nate asked the question—the Kilcannon people tried to kill the story. As Nate was certain they would.

Time was running: in five days, the voters would go to the polls. The real story of the California primary, hidden from all his colleagues but Lara, was the dark corner in which Nate and Kerry Kilcannon now competed for control. Resuming his silent watch for Kit, Nate felt an intensity that bordered on obsession.

This was not personal, Nate felt sure—no matter what Lara might suspect. Though he had almost never voted for a Republican, Nate had achieved a certain detachment from his own beliefs, and there was little any politician could do to either offend or please him. Nate’s job was to interpret, to separate rhetoric from reality, to cut through the mind-numbing repetition, the robotic determination to avoid error, the protective armor of spin, through which most candidates try to obscure hard truths and manipulate the news. If Kerry Kilcannon was often better than that, it made no difference now. Nate had a legitimate question to ask; for reasons he understood but could not honor, he believed that Kilcannon was trying to avoid him.

The curtain opened.

Instead of Kit Pace, it was Sara’s new love object, Dan Biasi,
the Secret Service agent. From Dan’s look of deep preoccupation, Nate guessed that he was searching for an empty bathroom. As Dan hurried past, Nate rose from his seat and casually followed. But for Lara, no one else looked up.

When Nate got to the rear, the bathroom door was locked.

Nate leaned against the baggage closet, as if waiting his turn. The door opened and Dan Biasi emerged, his dark hair freshly combed.

“Better?” Nate asked.

Dan laughed good-naturedly. “Too much coffee. The senator says I’ve got the smallest bladder in the Service.”

For Dan, Nate realized, the airplane was a zone of relaxation, relief from the terrible alertness the Service must show on the ground. Beneath the young agent’s eyes were the etchings of fatigue.

“Now that your head is clear,” Nate said amiably, “can you tell Kit Pace I need to see her, ASAP? There’s a fact I need to check.”

Dan’s smiled faded. Scrupulously apolitical, the agents avoided anything that fell outside their mission. “Yeah,” he said at length. “I can do that. Unless she’s tied up with someone.”