The Frankenstein Candidate (41 page)

Net Station’s ratings had already soared.

He pecked her when he left to board his flight, his lips brushing hers at the edges, her face registering neither surprise nor embarrassment at the action. Alert as ever, Mike Rodrigo noticed, but he was sworn to secrecy. If there had been paparazzi around, photographs would have been taken. They didn’t care. Newly intertwined souls do not worry about such things. In fact, they don’t worry, period.

In any event, Mike Rodrigo had organized a chartered plane, and they were not at the usual, busier, terminal. Seemingly, there were no paparazzi around.

San Francisco was a huge success for Frank. The crowds kept multiplying. Thirty thousand attended his address at the Giants stadium on September 11. Never had so many congregated to listen to what they didn’t want to hear.

The suits had to switch course.

“I say we finish the job now.”

“He is too popular now for an accident to go unnoticed.”

“Raul is already on his way. Right now, as we speak.”

“Stop him. We have a better plan,” the queen bee of the suits said.

It was late in the evening. Mike Rodrigo always shifted the car Frank was in, always at the last minute. Frank stayed behind this time, checking into a hotel while one of Mike Rodrigo’s men, Silvio Zappa, similar to Frank in height and build, wore Frank’s overcoat and stepped into the first car.

Frank was resting and getting ready to retire when Mike called.

“A truck and a trailer…at least four people are dead, many more injured. The driver of the truck is dead, a guy called Raul Fernandez, but they can’t even get his body out yet.”

“Is Silvio all right?” Frank demanded.

“Yes, just concussed, a little bit of whiplash, that’s all.”

“We need to find who is behind this… if it wasn’t an accident.”

“It wasn’t. I’m already on it.”

“I will ask for Secret Service protection again.”

“They are required to provide it now…under the 120 days to election rule. But I want to oversee them.”

“I understand. Do me one favor.”

“Sure, Mr. Stein.”

“Let’s not raise the possibility that it wasn’t an accident, even with the Service. I don’t want them to think that anything other than a routine accident occurred. Keep it from Kayla, especially from Kayla. I don’t want her worried sick.”

“I was going to recommend this anyway. We need them off guard,” Mike said.

The stakes had elevated. He had to be very careful, Frank realized. For security reasons, Frank’s campaign offices were always on the move. Even Mike Rodrigo himself didn’t know the day after tomorrow’s office location—he worked it out day by day.

Mike Rodrigo made no mention of Silvio Zappa taking Frank Stein’s place in the car to the police when they showed up. The police were methodical, efficient; an accident report was issued the next morning. Four innocent people had died along with the driver of the truck, and no suspicion was aroused. The item was briefly mentioned on page ten of the
San Francisco Monitor
and on local radio.

Nevertheless, Frank fully intended to appear at the first presidential debate on September 17. But first, he needed to announce a running mate for the vice-presidency.

He hastily organized another meeting with Olivia. He had seen it before—the complete ideological reversal, someone, who in their deepest introspection, had found a new ideology and, driven by the force of their new convictions, had betrayed their old creed. It was the wrong reversal that he had seen…with Mardi thirty-one years ago. It was the right reversal he so badly wanted to see.

Olivia came to Frank’s makeshift office the day he came back from San Francisco. They started to gauge the serious possibility of her joining his campaign.

“I am a great believer in public education. It’s about equal opportunity,” she said.

“It’s the best way to sell it,” he replied.

“So you too believe in the public education ideal?”

“I didn’t say I did. It’s just the best way to sell it. Who can be against equal opportunity? What better way to control minds than to take them young and mold them to your will?”

“You really believe that…that the funding of public education is a conspiracy?”

“There are serious benefits including, as you say, some equalization of opportunity. There is a cost, and it is not limited to taxing people who would rather have privately funded education for their children or those who have no children. The real cost is the nonsense they disseminate in the social sciences.”

Olivia wasn’t going to give up her long-revered ideals so quickly. She did agree to meet Frank every other day and consider all her options. He was in no hurry. He had a sense that she had turned the corner by starting to question her every cherished ideal. Apart from her possible participation in the televised vice presidential debate, he had no reason to hurry; in fact, he didn’t want her to join until she was ready and she knew it.

“Everything is a game, Olivia,” Colin Spain said. “Everything.”

Olivia had finally agreed to meet with him. They were together at his house, where he was still recovering. The furniture was a blend of the ostentatious and the sedate; the walls were colored in dark shades, yet the ceiling was spotless white—she wondered if that was the way he perceived life—contradictory, perplexing. Her question was about to be answered.

She sipped on the fresh lemonade his assistant had prepared. His wife was nowhere to be seen. Olivia didn’t ask about her or even much about his health—he seemed anxious to extend only perfunctory courtesies before plunging into a long discourse. As tempting as it was to start by condemnation, she listened. She could not condemn without understanding—it was, as always, her way.

“Business, religion, relationships, crime, power, politics, career, fame, fortune, prestige, love…you name it. It’s all a game. First, you need to figure out the rules. Remember, some of the rules are unstated. Then you play the game to win. You always play to win, otherwise you don’t play. Do you see that? You think love is not a game? It is. Just go into a pick-up place and watch. The men come by and read tarot cards and they read palms and tell the women what they want to hear and they go home with one. The honest guys, they go home alone. There is no religion. No science. No principles. We are all just here to play. Play the game of life till we die. Each subset, whether it be love or business or government, all have rules, and some rules are hidden. You know who the winners often are? Those who figure out the hidden rules. It is not just in politics. Everything is politics. Everything. Don’t we always hear that? He was not as bright, but he knew how to get ahead? The psychologists now have a term for it. Social intelligence. But that too is a game. Making up new terms. There is a book on everything these days. How you talk, how you say hello, public speaking, marketing, selling, getting ahead, becoming rich, becoming famous. How many books on just being honest? You want to get ahead in life? Observe. Observe the game and then play it by all its rules and play it to win. That is the problem with Frank Stein. He doesn’t get it. He just doesn’t get it. That, my dear Olivia, is the truth.”

“That’s not the kind of truth I am seeking,” Olivia said calmly.

Olivia’s icy glare made him twitch.

“I had nothing to do with it, Olivia, nothing at all. I had no idea they would go that far. I didn’t even know Gary was seeing another woman, I swear.”

She kept looking at him, her eyes boring into him, like an x-ray machine turned into a lie detector. If the lie was one little red tissue, one patch, one little glowing fiber somewhere in his whole being, she wanted to find it.

“I want to believe you. But what would you have done had you known?”

He struggled. Words did not form, and those that did could not escape his throat.

“I thought so,” she said with the condemnation one would reserve for a pedophile.

Her haughty tone reenergized him—his jaw relaxed, the gates opened again.

“What are you seeking now? You have started the inquiry. So now what? Why did Mardi Tedman lie? Is that what you want to know? Why did the party latch on to a convenient mechanism? The reasons are always the same. It got a life of its own, and then there was no stopping it. It became part of the game—the game, Olivia, the game. After all, you do need something to control industry with.”

“So we facilitated a scientific hoax?” He had never seen her so calculating, so calm.

“Exaggeration perhaps, but not a hoax. Now even Big Oil is on it. Everyone is on the gravy train. It will take a lot more than Dr. Tedman’s reversal to change course on that one. You should let that one go, Olivia. There are many things like that you have to let go. God, you could have been president.”

“What else is out there?”

“Like I said, everything is a game. Things take a form and you have to play with it…as it happens. Anyway, you are out of it now.”

“You are not. You are being investigated too, although I believe…for now…that you did not hire the hit on Gary.”

“Well, I am clean…I have nothing to worry about,” he said, albeit with a tone that suggested he was merely trying to assuage himself.

“By the way, in case you are wondering, I am considering joining Frank Stein.”

He wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be a kick in the groin or shock his weakened heart. It felt like both. It took him a while to compose himself. And to think he had chosen her as his deputy!

“I kick myself every day about not realizing how naïve you were…still are. Larry thought that was a good thing—the innocence that will sell well to the public—and it did. But Stein is just as greedy and manipulative as everyone else, you will see,” he said, trying to appear confident. But his face betrayed him, the eyes lost focus, his arms quivered just a little bit, sending signals that a trained instinct did not miss.

“If he is, then I am making a terrible mistake,” she said and got up to leave.

“By the way,” she said as she was leaving, “some of us have a moral compass to let us determine our choices in life. No, life is not all just a game to be played without getting caught.”

Olivia left, not wanting to engage any further. She had decided to wait until after the first presidential debate to make her decision.