Smoke and Mirrors (6 page)

"Or 'shit,' " Nick said. There were half a dozen other sheets of paper in the S file; he picked one up and began to read it. His face was as mobile as an actor's; eyebrows, lips, and cheek muscles twitched in sympathy with his emotions.

"Why does she keep them?" Erin asked.

"What would you do with them?"

"Throw them away. Burn them—"

"Oh, everybody gets letters like these," Nick said absently. Then he realized what he had said, and laughed. "All public figures, I mean. They develop a certain thickening of the skin. But crap like this can't be ignored. There are a lot of loonies in the world, and thanks to the NRA, too many of em own guns."

"But surely no one would—" She broke off, not needing Nick's quizzical sidelong glance to tell her she was being naive. People would; people had.

She shivered and Nick looked at her. "Maybe you'd rather do something else."

"Of course not! I can handle it. You're the one who's making a big thing of it!"

Nick pretended to cower. "Please don't hit me, lady, I was just trying to be a little gent. I keep forgetting you feminists don't like it."

"I am not a feminist. I hate that word."

"Why? What's wrong with being a feminist? High bloody time you were, isn't it?"

"I do not want to discuss the subject," Erin said frostily.

"Right, right. Nothing to discuss. Self-evident. Anything you say. No, but seriously—I wasn't trying to put you down; I encountered a couple of equally foul offerings when I was sorting mail, and I'm not too proud to admit they made me sick at my stomach."

The confession made Erin feel a good deal more kindly toward him. "You sorted mail?"

"Lady, I've tackled most everything," Nick said in a John Wayne drawl. "I wasn't always the big shot you see today. Only one year ago I was as insignificant and humble as you; a mere cipher in the majestic numbers of politics, a cog in the bureaucratic wheel. ..."

"Then you must have something more important to do, " Erin said, unable to refrain from smiling.

"My day wouldn't be complete without a quick glance through the shit file," Nick said. "This guy doesn't know his Bible very well. The number of the beast is 666—no way you can get Rosemary's name to fit that—and said beast is specifically designated as male. "

The letter he held was almost a manuscript—eight single-space typewritten pages. "It was incoherent throughout," Erin said. "Why are the religious-fundamentalist people down on her?"

"She's against prayer in the schools and public funding for private schools. Both hot issues in rural Virginia." Nick tossed the letter aside. "That one wasn't so bad. 'Whore of Babylon' seems to be the strongest epithet. What's this?"

It was the last letter in the basket—typed, like the one he had discarded, but containing only two lines. Erin glanced at it.

"I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. At first I thought it might be from some undetected criminal, asking for reassurance; but it's not a question, is it?"

The message was short and simple. "There is no statute of limitations for murder."

Nick departed somewhat abruptly, taking the
S
file with him. He mumbled something that sounded like "right to life," and Erin puzzled over it briefly, wondering if some new in phrase had replaced "see you around" and "so long." Then the light dawned. Of course, that must be the meaning of the ambiguous letter— another way of calling Rosemary Marshall a baby killer, a favorite epithet of right-to-lifers.

She had worked her way through most of the letters when one of the volunteers brought the morning delivery, and an involuntary moan escaped her when she saw the bulk of it. The other girl's smile was not untouched with malice; Erin was one of the few in the office who was getting paid, and she knew she was an object of envy.

Steeling herself, she returned to the attack. There were no more anonymous outpourings in the first dozen envelopes, only a letter written more in sorrow than in anger that wanted to know why Rosemary didn't find herself some nice fella and settle down, instead of chasing around the state doing stuff "wemin" wasn't meant to do. After brief consideration, Erin decided not to consign it to the S file. "Mrs. Dick Milhauser" had signed her name, and she didn't sound threatening. Was there, Erin wondered, a form letter for such impertinent and irrelevant inquiries?

As she studied it, the door of an inner office opened and Joe ambled out. From the corner of his mouth a cigar emerged at a jaunty, FDR angle. He stopped by Erin's desk, removed the cigar, looked around as if searching for an ashtray, found none—there were "No Smoking' signs all over the office—and put it back in his mouth.

"Let's go out for coffee. "

"There's a coffeemaker back there." Erin started to rise. "Would you like me to—"

"I said 'out.' " Joe took her arm and led her to the door, giving her barely time to snatch her purse from where it hung over the back of her chair.

That should do it, Erin thought. The people who had been sucking up to her would increase the suction; the ones who resented her would have even greater cause. If Rosemary Marshall was the White Goddess of the volunteers, Joe was her High Priest, and although he was matey enough with the others, cracking jokes and slapping backs and bottoms, such a sign of favor to an individual was rare.

The coffee shop down the street was crowded, since it was getting on toward lunchtime. The place was popular with Rosemary's supporters, being convenient to headquarters; they were
easy to identify, since they all sported huge "Marshall for Senator" buttons. Joe stopped by a table occupied by a pair of them. "You guys through?" he asked.

By a strange coincidence, they were just going. Joe pulled out a chair. Catching Erin's critical eye, he gave her a broad grin. "When you've got it, flaunt it."

"What's
it?"
Erin asked.

Joe looked down at his stomach and brushed cigar ashes off the bulge of his shirt. His tie was beyond such first aid; the stains appeared to be coffee. "It ain't my good looks," he admitted.

Erin laughed. Elbows planted on the table, forehead gleaming with perspiration, he nevertheless had a certain charm. He must have been a good-looking man once, she thought, with the unconscious condescension of youth. Before he let himself go.

Joe planted his cigar in an ashtray. "Do you mind my smoking?" he asked, in a voice whose suddenly cultured accents fell oddly on her ear.

"No, that's okay. My father smoked cigars. I like the smell. '

"Rosemary told me about him. Was he ill long?"

"It was lung cancer," Erin said.

She looked at his cigar, and Joe acknowledged the unspoken lecture with a grimace. "Yeah. We always assume it will happen to the other guy. I'm sorry. Must have been tough—for you and your mother both. "

"Tougher for Dad," Erin said, reaching for the cup the waitress had brought. She was reluctant to break down in public, though the sympathy in Joe's voice had touched depths of grief she had believed were decently buried. But she found herself talking freely, describing her father's anger—"Why me, God?"—and her mother's collapse into teary helplessness. "She's angry too—angry with Dad for dying—but she can't admit it."

Joe nodded. "That's a normal reaction. I suppose he handled all the financial matters. That's a heavy load to have dumped on you without warning or advance preparation."

"There was time. He tried to go over things with her, once he realized ... But she couldn't handle it. Most of it fell to me. That sounds disgustingly self-pitying, doesn't it? But it was a shock to
find out there was so little money left. No savings, no annuity, only a minimal amount of insurance. Mother still refuses to accept the fact that her life-style has to change, we'd always lived comfortably—too comfortably, I realize now. We had to sell the house, there was a huge mortgage—and both cars. . . . Oh, you don't want to listen to this. I'm sorry."

"No sweat, honey. Is your mother all right financially? Rosemary wouldn't want—"

Erin felt her cheeks flame. "Please don't say anything to Mrs. Marshall! We're fine—we really are—and I wouldn't want her to think . . . Promise you won't."

"Okay, I promise. But she has her little ways of finding things out. If you need any advice—legal or financial—remember I'm not as stupid as I look. '

Joe frowned, but not at her; turning, she saw Jeff threading his way through the tables toward them.

"I might have known I'd find you feeding here," he said, taking one of the empty chairs and putting his briefcase under it. "Hi, Erin. How are things going?"

Except for occasional glimpses as he passed in and out of the office, Erin had not seen him since their first meeting at the house in Middleburg. He was dressed with the same formality as before, but the smile that warmed his sharp features made him look like a different man—a much more attractive one. Erin was too dazzled to do more than murmur a reply and smile back at him. He had even remembered her name.

"When did you get back?" Joe asked.

"A couple of hours ago. Rosemary was exhausted; I persuaded her to rest this morning, she's got a speech later, and then that fundraiser this evening."

Erin knew that Rosemary had been on a tour of southern Virginia, making a dozen speeches in two days. According to the polls she was in good shape in the northern counties, but she was still far behind her opponent in the rural areas. "How did it go?" she asked.

"Not bad." Jeff's tone was the same he had used with Joe— equal to equal, without condescension. "Nobody's better at working the shopping malls and the grocery stores. By the time she gets through exchanging recipes with the old ladies and telling the young ones how to handle diaper rash—"

"Never mind the diaper rash," Joe grunted. "What about that direct-mail list we were promised?"

Jeff glanced at Erin. She reached for her purse. "I'd better get
back—"

"It's okay," Jeff said, with another dazzling smile. "I wasn't being cagey, I just didn't know how much of this boring stuff you'd want to hear." He summoned a waitress with a wave of his hand. "Have you had lunch? Joe lives on coffee and Danish, it would never occur to him to offer you food fit for humans."

"Hey, it is lunchtime, isn't it?" Joe glanced at the watch strapped to his hairy wrist. "Make mine a double cheeseburger and fries. Erin?"

Lunch with the two top men in Rosemary's campaign was too heady an invitation to refuse. Fran would be green with envy. . . . Though admittedly the Columbia Cafe didn't sound as impressive as Duke Zeibert's or one of the other restaurants favored by top politicians. As she ate a decidedly wilted chef's salad, Erin comforted herself with the knowledge that she was already more savvy about politics than her starry-eyed roommate. This was what it was about, in reality—too much coffee and too little time, conversations about money and mailing lists and little old ladies in shopping malls. No glamour, just plain hard work.

The conversation that ensued wasn't boring, though some of it was incomprehensible. Key wards and swing wards, maxing out, hard money versus soft money. . . . During a brief lull in the talk when Joe had bitten off a larger bite of cheeseburger than was easily manageable, she ventured a question. "What does that mean—to go where the ducks are?"

Joe's cheeks still bulged, so it was Jeff who answered. "That's just one of those colorful phrases old-time political hacks like Joe enjoy using. Don't waste valuable time and money in areas that are unwinnable, or that you're already sure of."

"Oh. You mean, concentrate on swing wards. ' Jeff's eyes shone with what she took to be amusement; she added, "Did I say something stupid? I thought a swing ward—"

"I wasn't laughing," Jeff protested, and then proceeded to do just that. "I apologize, Erin; it's just that you sound so knowledgeable, and you look . . . well, you don't look like a politician. Most of em look like Joe."

Joe, still speechless, rolled his eyes in sardonic commentary. Jeff went on, "You've got the idea. A swing ward, as you obviously know, is one that can go either way and that therefore may pay off in terms of votes for your candidate if you play it right. The ones you go after are those with a large number of non-registered and uncommitted voters. It's unlikely you can get a die-hard, longtime Democrat or Republican to change his commitment unless your candidate does something brilliant or the other guy does something abysmally stupid."

Joe's Adam's apple bulged alarmingly as he swallowed. "Like old Buzz's fling with his floozie. God bless him. . . . Let's get back, time's a-wasting."

Snatching up the check, he headed for the cash register. Jeff helped Erin out of her chair. "When Joe's finished, everybody's finished," he murmured.

The workday
was drawing to a close, and Erin was tallying the checks that had come in the mail, when a burst of hilarity from the other end of the room made her look up. It was Nick again, going through his daily routine of entertaining the troops. The overwhelming majority of them were female, which might have had something to do with Nick's dedication. Most of the volunteers seemed very young to someone who had reached the advanced age of twenty-three; but there was a sizable sprinkling of middle-aged women among them, and to give Nick his due, he was as popular with the senior citizens as with the girls. He was particularly attentive to one white-haired old lady who lost no opportunity of proclaiming her age: "Eighty-four last birthday, and still with it!" She leaned heavily on a cane when she walked, but she never missed a day, and her vocabulary would have made a truck driver blush.