WASHINGTON:
DIRKSON SENATE
OFFICE BUILDING

 

Franklin J. W. Kindelberger had been a senator long enough to stop wincing at the fact that his office was in one of the buildings known as an S.O.B.

He sat relaxed in the small conference room that was part of his suite of offices, long legs stretched out across the carpeting and a heavy cut-crystal glass of bourbon on the rocks in one massive hand. He had the lanky build of a cowboy, big bones and long limbs, but his eyes were slitted, evasive, with the slightly crafty look of a banker or insurance salesman. He combed his thinning hair forward over his receding hairline. For years he had wanted to grow a beard, but thought it would lose votes, especially among the women. By now it would probably come in all gray, he told himself wistfully.

Kindelberger was relaxing with his three key aides after a tedious morning of meeting constituents and making promises. Most of the others on his staff had gone downstairs for lunch. Kindelberger was skipping lunch, except for his usual bourbon. He sat with his three aides on the comfortable leather chairs in the conference room, watching C-SPAN as a fellow senator made a long and boring speech to the empty senate chamber. Only Kindelberger was drinking.

“This is a waste of time,” he muttered. “She’s making an idiot of herself.”

“Plays well back home,” said Laureen Jarvis, the senator’s chief of staff. She was in her early thirties, round-faced and slightly plump.

Kerry Tate shook his bald head. “They show the empty chamber. Anybody can see she’s talking to herself.”

“It still goes into the record,” Jarvis insisted.

“Let’s get something else on,” Kindelberger insisted.

Ed Bloomfield held the remote control. The most brilliant manipulator of demographic data on Capitol Hill, he was grossly overweight, asthmatic, pasty-looking from spending every possible moment indoors, preferably in front of a computer screen. He clicked away until Headline News came on the screen.

“Aw, hell,” groaned Tate, “we’ve seen the financial report three times this morning. It’s not going to change.” Tate was the senator’s chief political advisor, the most trusted person in the room, the one who had been with Kindelberger from his beginnings as a hungry lawyer in Pocatello. Tate had been bald and nervous even back then.

“I wanna see the latest stock market numbers,” Bloomfield mumbled, his eyes on the screen.

“They might have more on the riot,” Jarvis said.

“Riot?” Kindelberger asked. “Where?”

“Right here,” said Tate. “In front of the Capitol.”

“When?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

Looking a little guilty, Kindelberger said, “I must’ve missed it. Didn’t see the news last night.”

“Picture on page one of the Post this morning,” Tate said.

“Didn’t get a chance to see the paper, either,” the senator muttered defensively.

They had to wait until the end of the half hour, after the sports report. The Colorado Rockies had lost to the Cincinnati Reds after beating them two straight. “Broke their winning streak,” Bloomfield quipped.

Then came the footage of the scuffle between the wheelchair-bound paraplegics and the sign-bearing religious picketers. Kindelberger muttered, “Bunch of nuts,” but it was not clear which side he meant. Reverend Simmonds appeared on the screen briefly, his eyes piercing beneath their shaggy brows.

“These godless scientists must be stopped before they destroy us all,” he intoned. “We must draw the line here and now.”

Kindelberger nodded.

The coverage went on to show Arthur Marshak’s stormy testimony and his threat to walk out of the hearing.

“What hearing is that?” the senator asked. “I don’t recognize anybody there.”

Jarvis said, “It’s not a regular hearing. It’s that science court thing.”

The news report ended and commercials came on. Bloomfield muted the sound.

“It’s getting a lot of people worked up,” said the senator.

“A few religious zealots,” Tate scoffed. “And some motorcycle thugs.”

“It’s more than that,” said Bloomfield. He always sounded breathless, as if each word were an effort.

“What do you mean?”

“This could be bigger than abortion rights.” He sucked in air noisily. “They’re talking about growing a new heart inside you . . . when your old one starts to fail.” Bloomfield sank back into his leather chair, mouth hanging open from the exertion of talking.

Laureen Jarvis took over. “The scientists think they can grow new organs inside your body when you need them. Regenerate amputated limbs, stuff like that.”

Kindelberger grunted thoughtfully. “Can they grow new hair?”

Everyone laughed, except Tate.

“Is there something in here for me?” the senator asked.

Bloomfield raised a hand and ticked off his fat fingers. “Religious vote. Senior citizens. Stem cells. Abortion rights. Insurance industry. Birth defects. Health care.”

“Which adds up to the women’s vote,” Jarvis added.

“And no two of them on the same side,” grumbled Tate.

“What’s AARP say about this?”

Jarvis shrugged. “They haven’t come out with a position yet.”

“Nobody has,” said Bloomfield. “Too early.”

“I’ve never seen people so worked up about scientific research,” Kindelberger said.

“Stay out of it,” Tate snapped.

The senator gave him a quizzical look. “You always say stay out of it, Kerry. Hell, you wanted me to stay out of the health insurance fight.”

“You were lucky then.”

“Maybe I could get lucky again,” Kindelberger said. “After all, I am on the Human Resources Committee.”

Tate shook his head vehemently. “This is a no-win situation, Franklin. If you go with the scientists the religious right will attack you as pro-abortion. If you go against the scientists the AARP will crucify you. And who the hell knows which way the insurance and medical lobbies will jump? They don’t know themselves, yet.”

“Stem cells are a trigger issue,” Bloomfield said. “Gets everybody hot, one way or the other.”

Kindelberger slumped back in his seat and took another sip of his bourbon. The room fell silent. The news was back on the television, but it was still muted.

“I’ve got to face that sonofabitch Maklin next November,” Kindelberger muttered. “And he’s got the governor behind him.”

“All the more reason to avoid slitting your throat over this issue,” warned Tate.

“Good TV coverage,” Bloomfield suggested. “Better than speeches on C-SPAN.”

Tate scowled at him.

“Suppose he just sits in on the hearings?” Jarvis suggested, pushing back a stray lock of hair that had fallen over her face. “As an interested member of the Senate. A concerned senator.”

“Yeah!” Kindelberger brightened. “I wouldn’t have to take a stand, just say I’m there to see for myself what this is all about. I’ll look smart and be on TV.”

“If they continue to cover the hearings,” Tate pointed out. “The TV crews were there yesterday only because it was the first day. Nobody expected the demonstrators.”

“This Dr. Marshak,” said Jarvis, “the guy who threatened to walk out of the hearing. He looks like good TV material to me.”

Kindelberger shrugged. “We could check and see if the demonstrators intend to keep it up. Get in touch with that reverend.”

“We could make certain the networks know that the senator will sit in on the hearing,” Jarvis said. “That will guarantee news coverage, at least for the first day you show up.”

“Right. And if they stop covering the hearings I’ll stop attending.”

Tate still glowered, unconvinced.

“It’ll give us some time on the tube that we wouldn’t get otherwise,” Jarvis urged.

“Make him look like he’s on top of a coming issue,” Bloomfield agreed.

Very reluctantly, Tate said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it could be a plus.”

“So set it up for me, Laureen,” said the senator eagerly.

“But don’t say anything at the hearing,” Tate insisted. “Don’t you open your mouth.”

Kindelberger grinned at him. “I’ll be quiet as a li’l ol’ mouse.” Then he added, “In the meantime, get ahold of that guy Simmonds for me.”