The Next President (20 page)

One was Deena’s customized, mint-condition, ‘60s-vintage Airstream trailer, which rested on a neat foundation of well-joined mason blocks. The other structure was a small log cabin that looked old enough for a young Abe Lincoln to have built it on his way north to fame, assassination, and immortality.

The cabin was as tumbledown as the trailer was well maintained. The

roof had holes in it; the only window was broken out; and the door hung precariously in its cockeyed frame.

Deena, looking much more in possession of her faculties than the day be fore, stepped out of the trailer to greet Evan and Blair as they got out of the pickup and surveyed their surroundings.

Blair asked, “How do you get to live in a national forest like this?”

Deena inclined her head at the cabin.

“One of my great-greats built that.

I got a claim on this land. My lawyer says the government’s either gonna have to cough up a pile of dough or we’ll be in court long enough for me to live the rest of my life here.”

“What if the feds sneaked in one night and hauled the cabin away?” Evan asked.

“Just let ‘em try,” Deena said with a mean little grin. She whistled and called out, “Here, Gorby!” In response, a black bear that had to weigh five hundred pounds came bounding out of the cabin. Evan and Blair scrambled back into the truck. Deena threw her head back and laughed at them.

The bear shoved its muzzle into Deena’s crotch and almost lifted her off the ground. She gave the creature an affectionate but solid swat on the head and told it to wait right there. Then she went into her trailer and came back out with a large chunk of honeycomb. The bear snapped it up right out of her hand and returned to the cabin.

“You heroes afraid of a little boo-boo bear?” Deena called out.

“What the hell good you going to do me?”

She went back into her trailer, and her visitors quickly followed her inside.

The interior of the trailer was a study in compact living: a breakfast bar fronting a tiny fridge and a two-burner stove; a lavatory on the scale of those found in commercial airplanes; a small kitchen table with two chairs under the trailer’s only window; and at the back a black-and-white plaid sofa and a small TV on an end table.

On the walls were examples of Deena’s art. Her influences appeared to run the gamut from Munch to Picasso to Hustler. Her draftsmanship was both expert and richly detailed.

The trailer was as well maintained inside as outside.

Deena told them that Ivar had purchased Gorby from a carnival he’d happened upon down in Tennessee. The bear was of the performing variety and used to the company of humans. But Ivar had made sure the animal still had its teeth and claws. Otherwise it couldn’t have protected their belongings when they were away from home.

“Does that bear actually mind you?” Blair asked.

Deena nodded.

“We have an understanding, Gorbachev ‘n’ me.”

“That’s the bear’s name, Gorbachev?” Evan inquired.

“Yeah. Fella who sold him to Ivar was this old Russian. Said he’d named the bear after his country’s most famous real estate agent. Told Ivar the real Gorbachev sold about the whole damn country to the Americans. Now that Ivar’s gone, I’m real glad I have Gorby’s company.”

For just a moment, the pain of her loss showed harshly on Deena’s face.

Then the look of heartache in her eyes abruptly gave way to a hard glint of vengefulness.

“Let me show you the picture of the bastard who killed Ivar.”

She took out the drawing she’d made of the man Ivar had said was going to make him rich. Evan and Blair studied it while she deftly made a second sketch for them. While she was drawing, she passed the time by telling them how Ivar had spent his last week alive.

Evan and Blair spent an hour listening to Deena and the rest of the day following her leads.

Among their stops on the back trail of Ivar McCray later that day, Evan and Blair visited A 2 Z Mufflers in Metropolis, Illinois. They showed Deena’s sketch to a thin, grimy mechanic with a prominent Adam’s apple named Bulging Bob. When Bob’s boss happened along and objected to him taking work time to talk to Evan and Blair, Bob told the guy to fuck off or he’d burn the place to the ground.

The threat was taken as gospel and Bob was left to continue his conversation.

Bob said he did, in fact, recognize the dude in the drawing. Had seen Ivar with him at a place called Dingle’s up near Vyenna, giving the town of Vienna its local pronunciation.

Evan thought to ask, “You learn your trade by working on your Harley?”

“My hog, my daddy’s pickup, my grandpa’s tractor, and any other damn piece of internal-combustion machinery I ever come across. Just like most of us.”

“Was Ivar at all handy?” Evan wanted to know.

Bulging Bob noticed that Blair’s eyes had narrowed when he heard the question.

“You mean was he up to building that bomb? I wondered that myself. The way I saw Ivar, he was slow but steady. It might take him a month to read five pages of an engine manual, but when he was done that boy knew his stuff cold.

In his own way, Ivar was a real craftsman. You ever see the work he done on his old lady’s trailer? Yeah, I think Ivar coulda built that bomb—if someone showed him how. But I still don’t think he died the way the newspaper said.”

“Why not?”

“Usin’ a soldering iron—any electrical tool—while standing in a puddle? Nobody’s that goddamn dumb. That’s somebody tryin’ to make it look like you are.”

When Del Rawley got home he was greeted by his entire family and many an old friend from his early days in Wisconsin politics. Everyone urged him to fight the smear and stay in the race. It was only after dinner that Del found the time to speak privately with his wife.

“Does it make a difference that she’s white?” he asked Devree, referring to Sophie Moreau.

“No,” she replied.

“I’ve never been unfaithful to you,” he told her.

“I know.”

“But you’re still hurt.”

The Rawleys sat next to each other, alone in the family room of their home.

Pictures of their children hung on the walls along with academic awards. Athletic trophies resided in a glass case. The three volumes on politics in America that Del had published stood between bookends on a small pedestal table.

“I got mad at first,” Devree said.

“I wanted to hit somebody.”

Del smiled.

“I bet you would, too.”

“You’d win that bet… but when I realized there was nobody to hit, that I’d never get the chance, then I realized how much I had been hurt. We’ve been married thirty-one years, we’ve raised a beautiful family, we’ve built an exceptional life. Now you’re running for president, and first someone tries to kill you. Then someone else throws mud all over your good name.”

Devree realized the implications of what she’d just said.

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that woman in France or her son ..

.”

Del pressed his fingertips to Devree’s mouth.

“I know what you meant,” he assured her.

“You don’t have it in you to hate anyone.”

“Except that bastard who tried to kill you, and the people who think they’re smearing you. I can hate them, all right.”

“You want me to drop out of the race, Devree?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t make that decision for you, Del.”

“What would you do if you were in my place?”

Devree smiled broadly and took her husband’s hand.

“The first black woman who’s going to be elected president? Well, I guess the first thing I’d do would be celebrate my hundred and fiftieth birthday. It’ll take about that long before this country is ready for the likes of me.”

Del Raw-ley laughed. Then he leaned over and kissed his wife.

“Only if it took that long to get to know you.”

Devree said, “Del, if it were me, I’d fight them till my last breath. That’s what makes it so hard to have you keep me and the children all tucked away safe while you’re risking your life.”

“I couldn’t do it if I had to risk your safety or the kids’. I wouldn’t do it.

Nothing is worth that to me.”

“That’s probably just what the bastards were counting on. Put you in a spot where you’d need to trot your family out to show what a fine, upstanding man you are. They know you’d never do that. So they’ve got you no matter which way you turn.”

“So what do I do?”

Devree squeezed her husband’s hand in hers, letting him know he could always draw on her strength.

“You make the choice that you can live with for the rest of your life, and then you don’t regret it for a single minute.”

The problem was, Del hadn’t concluded what that choice would be yet.

“But honey?” Devree said, arching an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You decide to stay in the race, you’ve got to promise me one thing: You’ll fight just as mean and dirty as it takes. You don’t give those evil bastards one free shot.”

Devree kissed Del and left him to make his decision in solitude.

Del built a fire in the fireplace and stared at the flames until they burned down to embers, long after everyone else in the house had gone to bed. He felt a deep sense of peace just sitting there. The kids were back home tonight, and the grandchildren were there, too, sleeping in makeshift arrangements.

He was among the people who loved him most.

It would be so easy just to stay right there.

Then the president called.

Jenny was working late in her suite, making notes on a legal pad when the phone rang. She half expected the call to be from Don Ward. Then again, she half expected Don to keep right on calling even after he’d passed away.

“Jenny Crenshaw,” she answered.

“Burning the midnight oil for a man who might drop out?” Del Rawley inquired.

“Well, you know how it is with us obsessive professional women. We sublimate the rest of our lives to our work. Either that or I’ve found someone I believe in.”

“You sure you should believe in me?”

“If it turns out otherwise, it’s still okay. I bill by the hour.”

Del Rawley laughed. Hearing him, Jenny joined in.

“Thank you, Jenny. I hadn’t had a good laugh all day.”

“Anything I can do to help. I’m a full-service campaign manager.”

She’d provided him with the opening to saw that there still was a campaign to manage, but Del Rawley veered in another direction.

“I had a phone call from the president tonight.”

“Do tell,” Jenny replied with interest.

The tone of the campaign had been harsh and partisan from the outset.

For the incumbent to call his challenger was quite a turn of events.

“He said he wanted me to know with no uncertainty that he wasn’t responsible for breaking the story about Sophie and Bertrand Moreau.”

“Funny, his campaign manager, Ronald Turlock, told me the same thing.”

“He called you?” Del asked.

“No, I called him. To register my strong disapproval of the politics of the low road.”

“That was all you registered?”

“I might have mentioned two can play that game.”

There was a pause in the conversation. Jenny could tell that Del wanted to know just how she had threatened the president, what she could have gotten on the man that would have made him call his challenger personally.

But Del was too good a politician to let his curiosity’ outweigh the advantage of not knowing about—and being able to deny—skulduggery done in his name.

Still, he said, “Devree told me that if I stay in, I have to give as good as I get.”

“Sound advice. She knows what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah. Anyway, the president also told me that he’ll make a public statement tomorrow repudiating personal attacks on me. He says when it comes to policy or philosophy it’s bare knuckles all the way, but he will tell all his partisans to avoid all personal attacks. And on behalf of the people of the United States, he will urge me to stay in the race.”

“Very statesmanlike of him.” For a man with one ball, Jenny thought.

“Probably good politics, too.”

Jenny finally had to ask the question.

“So what are you going to do, Del?”

“Get your opinion.”

“Of what?”

“Of how my position will play if I stay in the race.”

“What is it?”

“If I stay in, I’ll explain my relationship with Sophie to the country just the way I did to Devree and my children. I’ll say how at one time I loved Sophie;

how I’d love to get to know Bertrand. I won’t deny anything. I won’t disown anyone.”

“You’re not going to change your party affiliation to the Commies, are you?”

Del laughed again.

“No. That’s the one thing I’ll openly disagree with, Sophie’s politics.”

“Then I don’t think you have a thing to worry about. The people who don’t like you already, fuck ‘em, they’re a lost cause. The people who support you will love you more than ever. And my gut tells me that of the undecideds, you’ll get more than half.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes. On the other hand, if you drop out, you’ll be abandoning all the people who support you in favor of all of those who don’t.”

After a long moment of silence, Del asked quietly, “We can’t have that, can we?”

“I hope not.” Jenny paused a heartbeat, then asked, “So, what’s it going to be, Senator?”

“Can you keep a secret, Jenny?”

“Sure. As long as it’s to your advantage.”

Del laughed once more. Then he told her, “I’d decided to drop out. I mean, I’d just made that decision when the president called. I listened to that man blow smoke at me about how he regretted the personal attack on my reputation, and I didn’t believe him for a minute. The more he talked, the angrier I got. That man is a weasel. The country deserves better than him. I can’t just let him waltz back into the White House for another four years.”

“So, I’ll see you soon?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“You sure I can’t tell the president he’s responsible for getting you back into the race?” Jenny asked gleefully.

“Okay, you can do it—right when I’m taking the oath of office.”