Troubled Waters (26 page)

Wes's rich baritone filled the room. “Giving parents vouchers for private schools is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper.” He paused and gave me a nod of recognition. “But in practice it means the abandonment of our public school system. A system that taught generations of children to be good Americans. A system that instills values of citizenship and diversity. A system that—”

“Excuse me, Governor,” Tarky cut in, “but if that system is failing, why shouldn't parents be entitled to get the best possible education for their children without regard to whether that school is public or private?”

The smile on Wes's face diminished slightly, but he kept his voice bright. “What we need in this country,” he said firmly, “is to strengthen and enhance the public schools, not put them out of business by—”

Tarky shook his head and lifted his hands in a time-out gesture. “No, Wes, I don't like that ‘putting the schools out of business' line. I can just hear Spurrier saying that a business that's failing ought to be put out of business.”

The aide who'd led me to the room stepped up to Wes and said, “Governor, it's almost time to go for the last-minute prep.”

Wes turned to me with a smile of rueful welcome on his tanned face. “He's trying to say it's time for makeup and hair.” He shook his head. “Television. Without a little powder, I'd go out there looking like Nixon, and we know what happened to him.”

He stepped toward me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I'm glad you're here, Cassie. Not just here in this auditorium, but here in Toledo.”

I murmured something completely untrue about being glad to be here. Wes's effusive charm tended to make me feel like a curmudgeon.

“Take the briefing book with you and study the school voucher section.” Tarky handed Wes a leather portfolio.

He turned to me. “Let's go to the skybox. I've got a bar in there if you want something to drink.”

The thought made me shudder. “Soda's fine,” I replied. The memory of my hangover was still fresh in my aching head.

We took a tiny elevator to a higher level, then walked along a corridor overlooking the audience. The royal-blue seats were filling up. As with the bumper stickers, I counted about three Team Tannock shirts for every one that touted Wes's opponent. Not that everyone wore campaign garb; there were suits and ties, turtlenecks and sweaters, jeans and skirts and one or two work uniforms.

The box was just that, a tiny square room with a glass wall on one side. There were three comfortable chairs, a table with a few bottles and glasses on it, and four television monitors. I settled myself in one of the chairs, let Tarky fix me a soda with ice, and considered the problem of when and how to bring up the matter of Wes's quashing of the investigation into the bogus airplane parts factory.

The band in the downstairs hall swung into a rendition of “Hang On, Sloopy.” It sounded truly strange played by a full orchestra. I said as much to Tarky, who barked a laugh. “That is, believe it or not, the state rock song.”

“There's a state rock song?”

“There's a state everything. The next time you see the candidate, he'll be wearing a red carnation.”

“Don't tell me—the state flower.”

“And our worthy opponent is never seen without a cardinal pin.”

“I remember that one. State bird.”

“I considered telling Wes he ought to wear the state fossil, but he drew the line at commissioning a trilobite tie tack. Said it might piss off the creationists.”

Tarky picked up a remote and turned on the televisions. Each showed the stage from a different angle. One camera would focus on Wes, another on Spurrier, a third on both at once, and the fourth would roam the audience for reaction.

“All this for a statewide race?”

“I'm convinced they built this thing in hopes of luring a presidential debate. No luck yet, but with Ohio a big swing state, it just might happen next time.”

Down in the hall, ushers herded the audience into seats, pushing people in toward the middle rows, bringing those in the rear up front so as to create a solid phalanx instead of letting empty seats fill the cameras.

Three people stepped onto the stage. One was Wes, wearing his famous smile, the red carnation in his lapel matching the red stripe in his tie. The second was a local newscaster. The third was a tall, slender woman with short-cropped, curly silver hair and glasses that dangled from a silver chain. Her powder-blue suit was softened at the throat with a scarf of pastel blue, pink, and yellow swirls. Sally Spurrier, former mayor of Cincinnati, looked like the firm but kind headmistress of a very exclusive girls' school.

It took a couple more minutes for the crowds to settle and the lights to dim. The newscaster introduced himself and the panel of Ohio reporters who would be allowed to question the candidates. I wondered if Ted would be among them. He wasn't.

The candidates each gave an opening statement, mostly fluff and rhetoric. I glanced at Tarky, who sat in his chair with one leg propped over the other. His pants had ridden up above the sock line, revealing an extremely hairy leg. He bit down on the unlit cigar so hard I was sure it was going to fall into his lap.

I liked Spurrier's voice. It was low, throaty, and she spoke with a slight tinge of the South, reflecting the fact that Kentucky was just across the river from her native city. She had a trick of picking up the glasses dangling from the chain around her neck and holding them as she made a point.

The first question, asked by the Akron
Beacon-Journal
, was the dreaded school voucher question. Spurrier launched into a set speech about choice and parental rights. Tarky leaned forward in his chair like a man following a particularly close football game. He grunted and muttered as Spurrier gave examples of places where voucher systems had worked wonders.

“Propaganda,” he said once, and “Elitist bullshit.” He took the cigar from his lips and shoved it at the screen. “Tell the truth, Sal,” he urged. “Tell the voters you don't want white kids in the same school with blacks. That's what this is really about.”

It was hard to tear my eyes away from the campaign manager, but I glanced at the screen that showed Wes. He sat in classic listener pose, his face as intent as if he were hearing all this for the first time. Once or twice he shook his head slightly, as if registering the tiniest possible dissent. I had no idea which pictures were going out to the viewing audience, and, more to the point, neither did Wes. He was clearly operating on the old political principle that you're always on camera.

“Governor Tannock,” the reporter droned in a monotone that confirmed his identity as a pencil and not a camera reporter, “you have consistently opposed the use of school vouchers. What is your rationale for this position?”

Tarky frowned as Wes stood and walked to the podium. “Give it to 'em,” he urged. “Give 'em the red meat, not the pablum.”

“The year,” Wes began, “is 1872. A child walks into a school and is introduced to her new classmates. The child is from Ireland and this is the first time she's ever been to school. By the time she graduates, she'll be able to read and write and get a job that lets her send money home to her family.”

“Go, Wesley,” Tarky said. He lifted a clenched fist to the sky and waved it as if urging a running back to gain yardage.

Wes paused and looked down at the audience, moving his eyes from side to side, taking in the room. “The year is 1896. This time the new child in class is Jewish, from a tiny village in Russia. By the time he leaves school, he's learned so much he earns a scholarship to college and becomes a doctor.”

A little clichéd, I thought, but the audience was rapt. I noted a few nods on the monitor that showed the first rows.

Wes's voice rose. “The year is 1958. The child is black, and for the first time in her life, she's able to go to a school with an indoor bathroom and new textbooks. She grows up to become a teacher. The year is 1996, and the child has come to this country from Mexico. He needs the
same
public education, the
same
opportunity, the
same
cultural experience, that this country afforded all its other children. This child, and
all
our children, need public schools. They don't need vouchers that separate them into rich and poor, black and white, Catholic and Jewish and secular. Vouchers separate. Public schools unite.”

The audience response clearly favored Wes. While Spurrier had been given a polite smattering of applause and a few raised signs that proclaimed, “School Choice Is a Family Value,” people stomped their feet and whistled when Wes finished.

The next question came from the
Blade
. The woman asking the question was young enough to be a student stringer; her voice was high and breathy. But the question was a killer.

“Governor Tannock,” she began, “is it true that you received a substantial donation to your 1982 congressional reelection campaign from a political action committee representing airplane parts manufacturers?”

Wes's face, shown up close on the monitor, went blank. No frown, no grimace, no dropped jaw—but the lack of expression showed he was rattled. He opened his mouth to reply, but the reporter raised a restraining hand.

“That was the first part of the question,” she said. “The second part is, did you suppress an investigation into the manufacture and sale of bogus airplane parts directly after receiving such a contribution?”

I glanced at Tarky. No camera sat poised to record every nuance of his response. He'd slumped back in his chair, and his face was pale. “Fucking shit. Who the fuck put that bitch up to this? Who the fuck—”

“Luke Stoddard said the same thing to me three hours ago,” I said quietly.

“Shut up. I've got to hear this.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands in an attitude of what might have been prayer.

“Don't let 'em get you, John Wesley,” he begged the man whose face filled the screen.

“I have never,” the candidate proclaimed, his voice cracking ever so slightly, “ever allowed any contribution to influence any vote I cast when I had the honor to serve in the House of Representatives. I have never permitted campaign contributions to dictate or influence my position on the issues. And I strongly deny any innuendo that I had anything to do with putting a stop to any investigation. You have my word that this is the first time I've ever heard anything about bogus airplane parts.”

Tarky drew a huge breath and expelled it in a long whoosh. He settled himself in the chair as if burrowing into a hiding place. Spurrier stood and gave a speech that indicated her staunch belief that bogus airplane parts were the worst thing ever to happen on the face of the earth and she, for one, was never going to be found tolerating them. It was clear she'd never heard of the issue before tonight either, but if there was political hay to be made, she'd be there with her pitchfork.

The next four questions involved taxes. Both candidates were against them. At length. I wanted to talk to Tarky, but I didn't want to be told to shut up again, so I held my fire.

The next tiny bit of fireworks came when the Cincinnati
Enquirer
raised the issue of drug use. Spurrier looked old enough and conservative enough that she could answer honestly that her lips had never wrapped themselves around a joint. But Wes was another matter. I recalled vividly the hemostat roach clip he'd carried in his pocket, and wondered how he'd answer.

“Like many people of my generation,” Wes said, a look of rueful apology on his face, “I admit to experimenting with what we used to call soft drugs. One marijuana cigarette, to be exact. I decided,” he went on, with a little laugh, “that I didn't like it very much, so I never had another one. And then we learned how dangerous drugs are. We learned that there is no such thing as a soft drug. All drugs are hard. All drugs destroy people. So I say to the next generation: Be smarter than we were. Say no the first time.”

“Is this for real?”

Tarky shushed me with a wave of his hand. The debate wound down. On points, it was a clear victory for Wes, but then this was home territory for him. I'd been told Spurrier wiped the floor with him in her native city.

The moderator closed the session and both candidates strode to the aisles to press the flesh. I poured another club soda and waited for Wes to come backstage.

Ten minutes later the door to the skybox opened and a furious John Wesley Tannock entered the room. He pointed a shaking finger at Tarky and said in a low, thrilling voice, “You are so fucking fired. Get your shit out of the office and don't bother showing up tomorrow. You and I are finished. Finished.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO

July 18, 1982

“Do you, Ronald Douglas Jameson, take this woman, Janice Elizabeth Gebhardt, to be your lawful wedded wife?”

For a wild moment, Ron considered answering in the negative. How could he, who would need help putting the ring on Jan's finger, dare to take any woman as his lawful wedded wife? What could he offer her except a lifetime of service to his terrible needs?

What he could offer her was friendship. And love. And respect. And a lot of things that didn't depend on having a whole body. He just hoped they would be enough.

He looked into Father Jerry's serene face and replied, “Yes.” Then he smiled at Jan, who held out her left hand. With Father Jerry's help, he slipped the thin gold band over the slender finger. She leaned down and kissed him.

It was done. They were man and wife.

The witnesses were Father Jerry's housekeeper and Ron's home attendant. They all adjourned to the sacristy, where Father Jerry served cheese and crackers and jug wine over ice. The “reception” lasted twenty minutes, after which the bride slipped away to change from her light summer dress into shorts and a T-shirt in preparation for the truly important project of the day: getting Joaquín Baltasar safely out of Lucas County and into Canada.