CHAPTER 11

 

 

DEE SETTLED INTO the comfortable back seat of the town car headed to her Manchester hotel. She inhaled the sweet smell of the black leather and sank her flesh into its soft embrace. She was tired. She did not want to think about how little she had slept over the past three days as they prepped for the just finished debate. It was not more than five or six hours in total and she felt the strain now. It was a dull ache deep in her bones. She stretched out and closed her eyes. Her whole career built to this point; races won and lost, candidates picked and spurned, contacts made and worked. Girlfriends shed or shunned. Her personal life reduced to an addendum to her work. All of it to get a shot at the big one. She would not let her body fail her now, just as she was on the cusp.

And, my God, what a candidate she had. She allowed herself a smile. Hodges was magnificent in the debate. He came across as the firm, decent honorable soldier, desperate only to serve his country. All of it was in sharp contrast to Stanton, who went on the offensive, jabbing and prodding him. She labeled him a negative campaigner with no experience of politics. But it served to diminish herself and make Hodges look above the fray. As long as he, himself, did not hit back, he looked – incredibly – the bigger candidate.

The same sense of decent non-aggression was not true of the Hodges campaign, of course. For days now it hit hard at Stanton, running ads from allied groups and briefing reporters on Stanton’s flag-burning photograph. Dee knew how to play reporters like a conductor in front of an orchestra. A whispered word here, a careful prod there, and then just sit back and watch the stories and angles play out while Hodges just smiled and talked up his own military career. It was Good Cop and Bad Cop, with Hodges the innocent front man for Dee’s black operations. It worked flawlessly. They were taking Stanton down. She felt the truth of it in her aching bones and in the results she read in the ever-narrowing polls. She wished, just wished, to see Howard Carver’s face right now. That old fart. She was handing his fat ass to him on a plate of her choosing.

Her phone rang and she toyed with the idea of ignoring it. For once she skipped the usual post-debate drinking with the young campaign staffers and the idea of her soft hotel bed was like Shang-Ri-La to her now. But as she tried to ignore the ringing, she knew she had to take the call.

The line crackled and it took a moment to recognize the frantic voice on the other end. When she did, she immediately kicked into high gear and banished the tiredness. Full alert.

“Mike!” she snapped. “Get a grip. Say that again. Slower.”

Then she listened as Mike’s story poured out. She listened as he described how Carillo was a retired General, of how everyone was afraid of him, of how the Western Union branch threw him into the street and finally of the burglary of his hotel room and the police who wanted to kick him out of town. Mike sounded panicked and paranoid. Dee was stunned.

“Mike, people getting robbed happens all the time in places like that. It must be a coincidence.”

Mike shot back instantly. “It was no fucking coincidence, Dee. Besides you said you don’t believe in them, remember?”

There was no doubt in his voice. Dee cradled the phone and her mind whirred. They could not afford this. They were just days from the election in New Hampshire. They were so close and yet the shooter and this Guatemalan story sat like a big, empty black hole at the heart of her plans. She knew she had no power over them and she hated that feeling.

“Dee? Are you still there?”

Mike sounded plaintive on the other end of the call.

“Hang tight, Mike. If you can, see what else you can find out. But don’t take any risks. I’ll work this end,” she said.

She had shied away from this task for too long, she thought. She danced around things, hoping they would go away. You’re a fool, Dee, she told herself. But she felt better now. She made a decision: it was time to talk directly to the source of the problem.

 

* * *

 

CHRISTINE HODGES opened the door of her hotel room with a look of surprise. Her mane of blond hair was tied back in a sharp bun and she wore no make-up.

“Dee?” she said. “Is there something wrong? Jack’s not here.”

Dee smiled at the platitudes. There was something sharp beneath Christine’s homely perfect wife exterior. She could sense it, feel the edges underneath the skin like submerged rocks at sea, ready to tear the bottom out of a boat. Dee respected and feared that.

“Actually it’s you I want to see. I hope you don’t mind.” Dee stood in the doorway, expectantly. She was going nowhere and she waited for that to sink in. Christine finally opened the door fully and gestured for Dee to come in. The candidate’s wife perched on the bed and looked at Dee with a measured look of hostility. Dee knew she over-stepped boundaries by coming here like this, but she pressed on.

“Can I be upfront with you here, Christine?” she asked.

Christine nodded. “Of course,” she said.

“Christine, Stanton’s people have something they think they can use against us. They are starting to put it around. I didn’t want to go to Jack. Because it doesn’t involve him.”

Dee let those words sink in.

“It involves you.”

Dee watched Christine’s features. There was nothing but a slight frown of puzzlement. The lines creased her forehead like rumpled sheets.

“Really?” she said.

“You have been paying money to a General Rodrigo Estrada Carillo. In Livingston, Guatemala. Stanton’s people have a money order with your name on it.”

Christine laughed and put a hand to her mouth. “Rodrigo?” she said. “Why on earth would that interest anyone?”

Dee was impressed. There was not a flicker of concern in Christine’s voice.

“It is unusual, Christine, and nobody likes unusual when it comes to presidential campaigns. So I have to ask you what’s going on. If the press decides to check it out and someone asks me about it, I need an answer for them. One blogger already has the story and we’d like to keep her from putting it out in the public domain.”

Dee kept her voice firm. She would not play into Christine’s casual attitude. “So give me an answer,” Dee said.

Christine frowned again. “Rodrigo was a good friend of ours, back in the late 1980s, when we were stationed out in Guatemala City. We got to know him socially. He is a good man. A strong man and a great friend of America.”

“So why are you sending him money?”

“Guatemala is a poor country, Dee. He has children who need to go to college. It’s the least we could do. Rodrigo deserves our help. He phoned up and asked us for it recently, as a favor, and so we gave it to him. It was our duty, as his friends and out of respect for the service he gave to America.”

There was a trace of rebuke in Christine’s voice that started to cross over into anger. “You need to have a little more faith in people, Dee.”

Dee smiled. True or not, that explanation would do. At least for a few days. She could use it to convince Lauren O’Keefe not to touch this story until after election day. By then – who knows? – they might be untouchable.

Dee turned to go. “Thanks for clearing that up, Christine. That’s all I needed to know.”

But as Dee walked back to her own room, she bristled at the tone of Christine’s last comments. “Have faith?” Dee thought. She fought down an urge to spit. It was not her job to just have faith, she thought fiercely. Her job was to win.

 

* * *

 

THE CAB drove Mike in the direction of the jetty for the ferry back to where he left his car. But, as he watched the houses drift by, he knew he could not leave Livingston like this: in defeat. It was not his nature. He fingered the egg-size lump on the back of his head. This was wrong, he thought. He never backed down from a fight. Not in high school. Not in college. Not in long years of fighting the big corporations and their lawyers in Florida. He would not do it now. No. He was not leaving like this.

“Driver,” he said, leaning forward to address the young Garifuna man whose battered car lurched down the potholed street. “You know where General Rodrigo Estrada Carillo lives?”

The man was silent for a moment. “Of course,” he eventually replied in halting Spanish. “But I am meant to take you to the ferry.”

Mike handed him a crisp twenty dollar bill. “Change of plan,” he said.

The driver did not hesitate. He took the bill with one hand as his other swung the car around. Now they headed the opposite direction, away from the port. The road went out of downtown and down the coast a little, going up a gentle rise and along a street lined with dilapidated once-grand villas. Most were surrounded by high walls and presented a blank face to the world. Few people walked in the streets. The car chugged quietly along and then rolled to a halt. The driver nodded at a building opposite. It was a square, ugly house, behind a compound wall into which was set an iron door.

“This is his villa, señor,” he said.

Mike got out, still carrying his bags. For a moment he felt nervous. But he swallowed it down. He would not be intimidated. He put too much into this, too much of his personal life, too much of his professional life, to be treated like this.

He hammered his fist on the door. The dull clang deafened him. But there was no response. He thumped the door again. This time the door was flung open. A tall man with a pockmarked face stood there. For a brief moment, Mike had a terrifying thought: was this the man from his hotel room? He stepped back. The man also looked shocked. He opened and closed his mouth in surprise, like a fish gasping for air.

“Señor?” the man said gruffly.

“I need to see General Carillo,” Mike said.

The man stared at Mike and said nothing. He stepped forward but then from behind him a jovial voice boomed and a short, fat mustached figure emerged from the shadows.

“Americano?” the man asked.

Mike nodded. “I work for Senator Jack Hodges,” he said.

The man grinned and flung his arms wide. He stepped forward and caught Mike in a powerful bear hug that belied his stature. It was a strong grip and Mike’s ribs cracked as he flinched from the man’s powerful smell of sour tobacco and coffee.

“Come in! Come in!” the man said. “I am General Rodrigo Carillo and Senator Hodges is an old friend of mine.”

The General took him by the elbow, looping his arm around him, and guided him back into the house. They walked into a dark and musty hallway that instantly shut out the blinding sunshine and blue sky outside. It was a different world, an older place, tinged by darkness. But Carillo was all warmth and charm. A pot of coffee, already warm, stood on a table and the General guided Mike to sit down. Mike was confused. He expected many things, but not hospitality.

“Why was I attacked?” he blurted out.

The General looked puzzled. Mike continued, fixing him with a fiery gaze.

“I’ve been sent here by the Senator’s campaign to investigate a payment made to you and last night, in my hotel, someone came into my room. They knocked me out and then the police told me to leave town. You owe me an explanation, General,” Mike said.

The General spread his hands wide and shook his head sadly.

“Ah señor. I am sorry for your troubles. The people here can be very over-protective of me. They are simple sorts. Peasants really, former slaves. So what can you expect? They don’t like those who ask too many questions.”

The General poured more coffee into Mike’s cup. “What do you know of Guatemala?” he asked, but did not give Mike a chance to reply.

“For many years we had a war here. We fought to keep the Communists out of our beloved Motherland. To keep it free. I was a General in that war for a long time and I have many old comrades. They remember me and our sacrifices…”

The General’s voice faded away a little, becoming something of a whisper.

“…and sometimes my former brothers in arms can be a little defensive. I offer my sincere apologies, if anyone has shown you discourtesy.”

Mike was thrown for a loop. The General’s garrulous demeanor was hard to resist. He seemed open and warm and eager to make amends. He got up and retreated into a backroom where Mike heard a distant clattering of pots. Mike glanced around the room. The wallpaper was faded and dirty, decades old, and everywhere hung photos and paintings. Some looked ancient and some were new. They were mainly black and white and chronicled the General and his ancestors – a succession of pictures of military and colonial life, all proud men bearing chests of medals or demure women, with ruffled dresses on the haciendas of grand coffee estates. Then the General emerged back into the room clutching a plate full of cheeses and olives and slices of fruit. He put it in front of Mike and signaled him to eat.

“Perhaps you can tell me now, why are you here?” the General asked.

Mike decided to confront him head on.

“It is my job to protect the Senator from his political enemies. It has come to my attention that you were paid money by the Senator’s wife. That sort of thing concerns us. Are you an enemy or a friend of the Senator’s campaign?”

The General stood up and laughed. “How ridiculous!” He guffawed and the sound echoed around the dark and lonely house. “I am Jack’s old friend. This money? It is for my children and their education. I am just a poor man who has served his country well. Jack understands this and he was kind enough to remember our friendship all those years ago when he graced our lives with his presence. For him, this money was not so much, I think. But for me, in this poor country, it is a lot.”

Carillo got up and took down one of the photos from the wall. He brushed off a patina of dirt with his sleeves and handed it to Mike. Mike peered at it, looking through the dust and back across the decades to the two men standing there. Age had changed both of them, but their identities were clear. Carillo and Hodges, both wearing dress uniform, and staring back at the camera, smiling.

“We defended this country for freedom and democracy,” Carillo said.

Mike suddenly felt uneasy. There was something dark beneath the General’s friendly demeanor; some hint of menace behind the smile. He could not put a finger on it but he knew he needed to leave and quickly. Mike thanked the General for his time and headed for the door.

“You will not stay?” the General asked.

Mike shook his head.

“But you had a bad knock on the head, you should not drive. Let my man Federico take you back to Guatemala City. He shall drive your car. It is the very least I can do to make up for your troubles.”

The General spoke in a tone that suggested he would not take no for an answer. The pock-faced man appeared silently at Mike’s side and followed closely as he left the house. Mike did not even try to resist further. The General was so open, so plausible. His story seemed logical. It explained everything and it was harmless. It was only on the ferry out of Livingston, as Federico sat wordlessly beside him, that Mike realized that on the walls of photos – detailing every facet of the General’s life and career – there was not a single photograph of any children. Nor any sign of a wife. Carillo had no family to send to college. Mike also came to another conclusion: having Federico drive him back to the capital was not an act of kindness; it was to verify that Mike actually left.

 

* * *

 

THE TWANGING accent on the end of her cell phone sounded familiar and terrifying and Lauren recognized the voice immediately. Dee Babineaux.

“How are you doing, ma catin?” Dee cooed. “I hope I’m not catching you at a busy time.”

Lauren looked around the Starbucks café in downtown Manchester. It was full of students and a sprinkle of campaign workers and other bloggers. She stopped writing about a Stanton speech from a campaign stop in West Manchester that morning.

“No, not at all, Ms. Babineaux,” she stammered.

“Call me Dee. Everyone does,” Dee said.

“What can I do for you, Dee?” Lauren asked, trying out the name for size. It did not seem to fit. She was suddenly swimming in waters way out of her depth.

“I’m just getting back to you about that little matter over Christine Hodges making a money transfer to Guatemala that you asked about,” Dee said. Her tone was casual and pleasant and betrayed no hint of stress.

“I’d been talking to Mike Sweeney about that,” Lauren said.

“I know,” Dee replied. “Mike’s busy with other things so I thought I’d call you and let you know we checked it out. Seems the Senator and his wife spent a bit of time in Guatemala back in the 1980s, but you probably knew that. General Carillo is an old friend and they are just helping him out in some tough times. It’s for a college fund for his kids, I think.”

“Sounds like a nice gesture,” Lauren said. “It would make a nice story even.”

Lauren sensed a sea change on the other end of the phone even as Dee continued in her friendly voice.

“Doesn’t it just? But here’s the thing. The Hodges are a pretty private pair. They want to keep this campaign about policy, not personality. They’re pretty jealous about their private lives and their family friends. You know what I’m saying?”

Lauren did. She knew exactly what Dee said and – far more importantly – what she meant.

“I understand. But a story is a story, Dee,” she said as her heart suddenly raced with her own nerve at defying Dee’s warning.

Dee gave a little snorted laugh and there was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line.

“You liked getting that little flag-burning picture, didn’t you, sweetie?” Dee asked. Dee’s voice was calm and steady now. It filled Lauren’s ear with delivered menace, an assurance it was Dee who was in control here, not Lauren. The sounds of the Starbucks faded out of Lauren’s hearing, replaced by the hiss of Dee’s voice in her head.

“We both know what that’s done to your little blog’s profile. The Horse Race is quite a big deal now. I’ve even seen you on the TV all dressed up and looking like the cat that got the cream.”

Lauren’s throat went dry. She knew Dee was going somewhere with this, but she was caught up in the words, pulled along like a riptide.

“Well, let me spell things out for you. You keep scratching my back and I’ll keep scratching yours. There’ll be other little goodies in the future for you if you stay on the right side with this other thing. I’ve told you the Hodges want this campaign to be about politics, not their personal lives.”

“Is that a threat, Dee?” asked Lauren.

Dee tittered down the line, a sound of genuine mirth, as if Lauren cracked a joke.

“Oh, Lauren. You’re new to this game, honey, but once your hair gets a little grayer you’ll come to understand that I don’t make threats. I don’t need to. I make promises.”

“What’s in it for me?” Lauren asked.

Dee laughed again. “I told you, catin, we like you right now. We appreciate the good work you’ve done. Maybe we’ll get you a bit of face-time with the candidate. I’m sure I can arrange a nice big interview. Maybe we’ll dig up a few other things about Stanton and pass them along. Just stick with us and you’ll go places, Lauren. You’ll go all the way. You’re gonna be big, Lauren. Do we understand each other?”

“I understand,” she whispered.

“Atta girl,” said Dee, and with a click the phone went dead.

Lauren suddenly felt the real world around her come back into focus again. Her body fizzed with adrenalin and she felt herself literally shaking. She knew Dee opened a door to her, a gateway to a whole secret world where the prizes were enormous. She closed her eyes. “You’re gonna be big,” Dee said. For the first time in her life, Lauren believed it.